Staff restrain woman after stabbing

Staff at the Amway sales company yesterday held on to a customer who had just attacked a worker with a knife and they didn't let go until the police took over.

The victim was last night in Middlemore Hospital with deep cuts to her head and fingers after the 2.20pm incident at Amway's warehouse on Lady Ruby Drive, East Tamaki.

Police said the customer, a woman, attacked the worker after they had argued.

Video footage shows two St John paramedics taking an Asian woman with bandages around her head and hand from the building on a stretcher.

Two police officers then lead another Asian woman, with her hands handcuffed behind her back, out of the building and put her in the back of a patrol car.

The handcuffed woman was wearing glasses and dangly earrings and had pigtails. She was dressed in a black jacket with a pink top underneath.

A cameraman at the scene said the detained woman "had no emotion whatsoever, just a complete blank look on her face".

The victim "was holding her hand, which had a big bandage around it".

"It looked like she was in a lot of pain.

"It looks like one of her colleagues went to hospital as well - a European woman got into the ambulance with her ... to give her a bit of support."

One of the first officers on the scene spoke Mandarin, which enabled police colleagues to find out what had happened.

The cameraman said some workers were unaware of what had happened.

"I spoke to a couple of warehouse workers ... They told me that they weren't aware of what was going on but they were told to lock down the warehouse.

"They were just told to keep out of the way, basically."

Police said a woman taken to the Counties Manukau station was "assisting with inquiries".

"The altercation resulted in the employee being stabbed by the customer," said Senior Sergeant Andrew Judson.

"The customer was subsequently restrained by the employees."

Police were trying to determine the relationship, if any, between the women.

A knife was recovered from the scene.

Amway sells a variety of products, primarily in the health, beauty and home-care markets.