Letters from the Front Lines: Vancouver Riot

The questions that remain…

Photo by Matthew Grapengieser

It is time for the public to speak out, and to stand up. I feel the need to voice my concerns as this begins to play out in the media.

After witnessing the events of Wednesday night, literally on my doorstep, and after hearing some of the things being represented in various media reports by City Officials following the tragic events on Wednesday, I know I have to.

First, to the instigators and to those that stood by or joined in the fray, I say that if you mask your face to attack the citizens and police of a city with weapons and explosives, burn and loot businesses, scare families, and try to justify these acts under the guise of free speech… then we as the people that don’t want any part in a riot (which the vast majority of citizens in this province did not) need to be looking at other options to protect the lawful and the innocent.

I don’t care about protecting your ignorance.

This is Canada, a country that we love. You will get arrested, you will get a lawyer, you have the right to you opinion, and to PEACEFUL protest. Gas and flames and masks are not peaceful. I promise, if you are peaceful and respectful, you need not fear we wont hear you if you speak peacefully. Your face may not end up being on the news, but millions of Canadians who value their rights will listen to you. Actually having a message that causes action takes more than a Facebook page and a crowd wielding gas and hammers.

What about my right to not live in a war zone? I live at Robson and Hamilton. We watched the kids cry terrified while the people drink more and cheer you on. We gave first aid to those who lay in the street defenseless while you attacked and laughed. We listened to the explosions caused by your stupidity well into the night.

How would you like it if we, the thousands that wanted no part in your riot, came to your house and rolled your car because we drank too much all while our friends were cheering us on?

So on to my questions……..

A child cleans up the mess on the Sears block after the riot. Photo credit: photog_gordon

• Parents: Have you talked to you kids and confirmed their whereabouts during the hockey game (i.e. were they downtown), checked their social media pages (you have the right as their parents to see their pages), and talked to them about our responsibility as a society to care about this city? Do they know people who were involved in looting or riots? If so please contact the parents of those kids to ask them to step forward and deal with this. If you aren’t comfortable in doing so directly, than contact the school, or the police and someone will take care of this directly for all of us. No little walls of silence here, everyone that came downtown and took part will have to answer for their actions. We can avoid future scenes like this by actually teaching our children the lessons that need to be learned from Weds night. Please keep the lines of communication with your kids open on this one; you are on the front lines. Thank you for being diligent.

• City Officials: Thank you for attempting to believe in us as we celebrated by providing an area to bring us together. When the streets filled throughout the day, why did you let the crowd have that much to drink, and why openly in the streets? As the day progressed, were you reviewing Police deployments, and the goings on at the event site as well as you should have been? Who was leading the process? Who was in charge of coordinating the festivities at city hall prior to, and during the event? You are our elected leaders. This is why we voted for you, to ensure Public Safety in situations like this.

• Police/Fire Dept: You did your best I’m sure as a horrible situation unfolded before our eyes, and your dispersion of the crowd in three hours while putting out the car fires was text book excellence. Why was there insufficient (seemingly non-existent) exit route site maps and event signage? Why wasn’t continued direction over a public address system given on how to leave the area safely? Why were the exits out of the downtown core closed when you demanded that people leave the newly named ‘unlawful assembly’ area? Perhaps most important question of the day is why were the recommendations of the report from 1994 riot, systematically ignored?

• Premier Clark: Thank you for your indignation and your leadership in the prosecution of these individuals who ruined this for all of us. As the crowds grew, and thousands flocked to the city from other places over the seven game series, what proactive steps did your Government (also our elected officials) take to offer resources to the people of Vancouver? What was the Provinces role in the process of setting up the LiveSite at Georgia and Hamilton? Did you request Federal resources at any point, and if not, why? We were representing Canada and our Province again on a World Stage, and we did it more than poorly. This was a complete failure of epic proportions. The hard work of the past years and billions of dollars invested in our image was dragged through the mud publicly in news reports around the globe.

To all the organizations listed in the part one of this note… Was there a written event site emergency plan in place in the event of a fire, earthquake or terrorist attack on the crowd? If so, please share it with the media immediately.

Were fresh water stations set up in accessible areas throughout the event site so that people could pace their alcohol consumption?

As a society of people that cares, why were we not asked to pitch in prior to the event? I don’t think there’s anything more Canadian than helping out others. One big success the Olympics had was a huge number of volunteers to supplement any event that was part of the program. Hundreds or more would have answered the call to be in the crowd as sober, safety volunteers. To bring water and first aid; to be the eyes of the first responders. To man checkpoints and help security personal look through bags as people came in to the site. We would have helped you, but you never asked. Is this because it costs money to do it the right way, times are tight, and we were hoping that we might get by without needing it?

Along the same lines, why weren’t multiple event sites set up around the city, mirroring the exact tactics that worked for us during the recent Olympics, ensuring smaller more manageable crowds, another budget issue?

If the answer to the question of financial shortfall is ‘Yes there was no money’ … Then I would like to know who actually asked for cash and support, and who said ‘No there’s no money’. Chief Chu mentioned in the media today that budget was a concern, so what was the process here? Did we earmark a budget and ask the VPD to stay within it, or did we ask the safety officials how much it would cost to ensure public safety and not like the answer. After seeing what was spent on the Olympics last year to successfully manage numerous public events, $500,000.00 for seven games seems extremely low.

Instead of preparing for the worst and expecting the best, it’s beginning to feel like we prepared for the best and expected even better, ignoring the ‘rainy day scenario,’ all together.

Surely we must have used this Olympic blueprint on some level, as every City Official including the Premier, Mayor and Police Chief have all invoked the lessons we learned during the 2010 Games. Were VANOC officials consulted in the setting up of the Georgia LiveSite at any point? Were the budgets they used during games time reviewed in order for us to set up proper funding for this site in order to ensure safety?

We should have found the money, and no matter the current fiscal outlook, we should have been ready as Canadians (not just residents of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland) to invest in the safety of hundreds of thousand of citizens, of this country and others to protect against the horror we witnessed first hand on Weds night.

Finally, please don’t weaken on any level your stated sentiment that these people will be prosecuted and those convicted will see jail time. Pile on the charges. Don’t back down at any cost. Lets make this as public and transparent as possible so that if anyone tries to derail the process, the general public can respond and support those trying to do the tough task of putting these criminals behind bars.

We want to stand with you, side by side, and it will help our city immeasurably to do so. No plea deals for the people that attacked Vancouver. Jury trials in open court with media coverage. We deserve the right to face our attackers in the most lawful way possible.

This next part of this letter is very important.

This can NEVER happen in Vancouver again. These questions aren’t put forth to point fingers, but if it wasn’t done right than there needs to be transparency and accountability for the tarnished image we face around the world. Billions of dollars in funding was spent last year to increase our profile and we did much on Weds to undue all that hard work. We will stand together to ask and answer these hard questions.

Obviously things didn’t work out the way anyone (except maybe the instigators of the riot) wanted them to. As citizens who want to see change, we need to absolutely support those who stand up and work with the public to fix the mistakes that were made, because we all bear some level of responsibility in this, for watching the crowds grow over the weeks, for not reacting to this before the fires were lit, the streets ablaze and the windows began to fall. No process is perfect and we can work together to address this. We will champion anyone who join our citizens in ensuring this never happens again. Transparency and accountability should be met with open arms as we work together to heal.

However, if there are attempts to deceive or deflect blame, than we as citizens will stand up ourselves and call for greater action and for the associated parties to be dealt with swiftly. Mistakes get made all the time, no one is perfect, its how we handle them afterwards that make us who we are, as a city and as people. There is an election in the fall for Vancouver City Council, and we want to support and reward those who approach this process with open arms. Those that seek to turn this into something political, truly don’t. This isn’t political; this is about real people hurting, real business owners suffering, real Canucks fans losing, the real heart of the City of Vancouver being bruised. A heart, which we are all wearing on our sleeve these days.

Time for the leaders to show real and effective leadership, and I for one am ready to vocally stand up for anyone and everyone who takes it upon themselves to not accept excuses and represent the majority of people that want honest answers and to prevent this kind of violence so our city can continue to host on the world stage.

— I reside a block from the CBC, ran to the street to give sober first aid to the many, many hurt and scared, and the next morning, we assisted in the clean-up of Vancouver.