Police in Saanich, B.C., are investigating a violent confrontation between an older man and a teenager at a Tim Hortons that was captured in a viral video.
In the short clip, the man can be seen throwing several punches at the teen before another man appears to break up the confrontation. Then, a third man steps in and slaps the youth.
The incident, which happened at the coffee chain’s Saanich Plaza location, has since been viewed millions of times.
Isaac Campbell, who recorded the video, said the teen sparked the incident when he threw an object that hit the older man’s wife.
The teen, he said, was “throwing food everywhere.”
“I get a chocolate bar whipped at my head, it just whizzes by my head … so I turned around, there’s like a 14-year-old kid standing there. He’s 14, I am not going to do anything, so I just gave him the stink eye. And then I heard an old man start yelling, so I just whipped the phone out, I knew something was going to go down,” Campbell said.
“In the video, you can see the old man just jumped on him, started feeding him punches. (The fight) got broken up pretty quickly. People started yelling … and then another guy walked up. He heard what happened and I guess he wanted to get a punch in too, so he just smacked the kid upside the head.”
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.
Campbell said he was later told the item that actually hit the woman was a beauty blender sponge, not food.
Tech Talk: What makes a TikTok video go viral & why some smart appliances go unconnected
Saanich police Insp. Damian Kowalewich said the incident is believed to have happened at the end of April but wasn’t reported until recently.
He said investigators have spoken with one of the people involved, but are still trying to determine all the facts.
“The video itself shows a very short snippet of what was likely a larger event inside the coffee shop,” he said.
“We know this video has gone viral, we know there is millions of views, and comments and speculation about what happened. The truth is, right now we don’t know what led up to what happened.”
Regardless of what occurred, Kowalewich said police never endorse violence or taking matters into one’s own hands.
“People who do take matters into their own hands can face consequences,” he said. “That being said, looking at what led up to that could also have its own consequences.”
Campbell, meanwhile, said he wasn’t surprised the video has generated so much attention online.
“I feel like it has all the attributes for a viral video, pretty much like a … ‘talk crap, get slapped’ moment,” he said. “You know, when you see an old man do something like that, it is pretty out of the ordinary to say the least.”
The elderly man and his wife, Campbell added, left the restaurant immediately after the incident.
“I saw after, the old man was walking out, (he) linked arms with his wife, and it was a pretty sick moment for the two of them, I would have to say,” he said.
“He pretty much just stuck up for his wife and walked out of there. She was probably pretty happy that night.”
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
