GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- Matthew Kolakowski had just left the Walmart checkout lane when a worker screamed that a man had a knife.
Then he heard a "mass wave of just blood-curdling screams from the back of the store."
He saw the man stab at another shopper, then stab an elderly woman in the back. He told his daughter and her friend to stay put while he and his brother-in-law gave chase.
The elderly woman "went down and there was blood pouring out of her. He had taken his knife from his left hand and shuffled it back to his right hand and turned around like he was going to get her again. And he had locked eyes with me at the time, and he saw me with the cart," he said.
Kolakowski drilled the man -- identified by police as Bradford James Gille, 42 - with the shopping cart. Gille tried to get up but another man with a shopping cart struck him from the other side.
Kolakowski had raised his cart to "just smash it on top of him," when another customer, Derrick Perry, armed with a pistol, held the accused stabber at gunpoint.
Kolakowski, 39, a disabled U.S. Marine who served in Iraq, and his brother-in-law, Chris O'Brien, 43, who backed Kolakowski and began recording when Perry showed up with a gun, spoke Tuesday, July 29, at a press conference in Grand Rapids.
Eleven people suffered stab injuries in the attack Saturday at the Traverse City Walmart store.
Gille, with a history of mental illness, is charged with 11 counts of attempted murder and a single terrorism charge. He is held on $100,000 bond. Police said he randomly attacked victims inside and outside of the store.
Perry, who also served in the U.S. Marine Corps, told ABC's Good Morning America: "I ultimately wanted him to put the knife down and back away until law enforcement got there," Perry said. "I did not see myself as any type of judge, jury or executioner -- I just wanted everyone to be safe."
Perry repeatedly ordered the man to drop the folding knife. Kolakowski, too, demanded that the man drop the knife. Gille finally dropped the knife and Kolakowski grabbed it.
Perry put his legally owned gun away seconds before a Grand Traverse County sheriff's deputy handcuffed Gille, who was being held down. Kolakowski then helped another deputy who applied a tourniquet to a man's shoulder.
While Perry lives in the area, Kolakowski and O'Brien, who live in the Grand Rapids area, were visiting with family.
Ed Kolakowski, a retired Kent County sheriff's detective who now works as a private investigator, said his son and the others acted heroically. He said they gained control in a chaotic situation, holding the man at gunpoint, using loud verbal commands and recording the episode.
"They all three did a phenomenal job, and they should be looked up to as heroes," he said.
"That could have been much worse if these guys weren't there."
Two others, including the man with a shopping cart, helped control the stabbing suspect but Matthew Kolakowski and his brother-in-law did not know their names.
"And I think our show of force is what caused him to put that knife down," Kolakowski said.
He said his Marine training taught him to face challenges head-on.
It was an unexpected event but his training kicked in, he said.
Kolakowski said his concern is for the victims. He's also worried about children, including his daughter, who were in the store and certainly traumatized.
"She went the complete opposite direction of where the threat was ... . And I just feel like she's more visually traumatized by the screams."
The victims range from 29 to 84 years old. All are expected to survive.
Kolakowski said police came flying in, with the brakes smoking on one of the patrol cars.
"So we knew they weren't playing around either. ... So, for anything to go down, it could have been any of their kids, any of their family, and maybe some of them were, but I don't know," Kolakowski said.
"But they came in hot, in full force."
© 2025 Advance Local Media LLC.
Visit mlive.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
