Brandon sword attack 1st responders awarded Order of the Buffalo Hunt

Const. Moshe Linov said he was simply doing his job, but the Manitoba officer who rushed to a high school and stopped a sword attack before more students could be hurt was celebrated Thursday for his heroic actions.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew awarded Linov of the Brandon Police Service — representing himself and other first responders in the June emergency response — the Order of the Buffalo Hunt. The award recognizes people who make outstanding contributions in areas such as community service and leadership.

"This is the perfect example of serving and protecting our community," Kinew told dozens of people gathered inside Brandon City Hall.

"This was a terrible thing that took place ... and yet in that awful moment, we saw the best of humanity."

The normal routine at Neelin High School was shattered on June 10, when someone entered the school wearing a disguise and armed with a sword.

Chinonso Onuke, 15, a Grade 10 student, was cut severely on the hands, chest and thigh. He attended Thursday's ceremony with his family.

His hands and lower arms were still wrapped in bandages, but he said his future looks positive.

"It looks pretty good. After my hands recover, I can just go back to school," the boy said.

Police allege the attacker targeted people of colour and immigrants. Linov, a school resource officer, got a call about the attack and responded within roughly three minutes.

"It's what I was trained [for] and it was what I was prepared for throughout my police career," Linov said.

"It's one of the events that I didn't think about myself. I thought … I have a call, I have an armed attacker in school and my job is to go and deal with it. So it's what I did."

He said school resource officers provide an important link between schools and police.

"We build relations with students and staff and it's a trust relationship," he said.

"Any call, any text, I will respond. And I did respond."

Brandon's police chief said Linov's actions were heroic.

"You didn't just secure a scene, you gave an entire community a reason to exhale, to feel safe again," Tyler Bates said.

'Keep doing what you're doing'

A suspect was taken down by a stun gun at the school.

A 16-year-old boy faces charges of attempted murder, uttering threats, wearing a disguise and possession of a weapon.

"Whether racially motivated or not doesn't change the fact that it had no reason of happening," Onuke said Thursday evening. "But at the same time it does show that … things like this do in fact happen."

Helen Onuke, Chinonso's mother, said everybody involved in the response deserves recognition for helping save her son's life.

"The teacher was applaudable. Like all the school staff, they responded very fast," she said, also praising Linov and Brandon police.

"Just to encourage everyone who is doing this kind of thing to just keep doing what you're doing, because how they respond matters to whether lives are saved or lives are destroyed."