Letters from the Front Lines: Vancouver Riot

From the perspective of a Vancouverite who risked his life to defend his city

Proud Vancouverites carry a severely injured man to safety. He was viciously beaten by rioters for attempting to prevent them from looting the Hudson’s Bay Company.  Photo by Jon Chiang.  Also see video of the gruesome attack.

I was in downtown and it brought me to tears.

People were breaking my city, and breaking people.

My wife and I went for a walk to be amongst the masses without a single clue that we were walking into a riot.  On the way up from Hastings, people walking down the street were kicking over mail and newspaper boxes. I felt obligated to stand up to each of these vandals as I passed.

I think I did that at least 40 times.

When we got to Georgia, the exodus seemed casual enough and the police were present.

And then it changed.

People started throwing metal barricade stands randomly up into the air and over the crowd. Each barricade that I saw fly, I tried to track down, collect and hide. There were two of us doing that, and we were leaving them in the lobby of a residential building with the help of a resident at the door.

I would hear a loud thud and see objects being thrown at the glass windows of the Bay and at White Spot. Each time we would go and track down the objects and haul them in. These people were devoid of emotion. I couldn’t help but to try and appeal to these hooligans to go away without doing more damage. It really didn’t work out that well.

My wife was somewhere helping some girl who had shrapnel embedded in her face (from a car explosion?) and another who got punched in the face for taking pictures. She said she heard somebody say, “that guy in the kilt is going to get hurt”.

It struck a chord with her because I was the guy in the kilt.

A young guy was walking down the street with a bushel of Coach handbags in his hands. I couldn’t help it, but I chased after him to ask why. He told me his BMW had been burned (not likely) so he needed to get something back. I wasn’t going to quit so I followed, and he ran. I ran and kept calling him a thief. There ended up being a small group (my wife included) chasing him down an under ground parking lot.

In the end it turned out that the crowd didn’t actually want to help, they just smelled blood and wanted to see some sort of frenzy. They actually turned on my wife and I, accusing us of being the ones who wanted the bags. My wife got the bags back to the Bay and passed them through the window to some security…

So many people were wearing masks.

I was standing by a photographer on Granville when three large men walked by. Both the photographer and I questioned the need to wear a mask. They took exception to the thought that we were accusing them of doing things.

In a flash, one of the thugs charged toward the photographer. I am not very smart and I my instincts took over and made me do something that I hope other people might do for me one day: I stepped in.

There was a huge difference in size between the two guys. The thug did a double take and decided to energetically go after me. Reeling backwards I tripped and fell over a bike rack (complete with bike) and did a backward somersault. As I rolled out of the fall, my big new friend was still bearing down on me. There was a police line marching up Granville by now, and it was about 4-metres away.

A loud bang rung out. It turned out that my friend was the target of a tear gas shot. I was greeted by a push back from a riot shield and told to clear out which I did pretty quickly.

Back on Georgia Street, I was trying to find my wife and I noticed that my now unmasked assailant and company had circled around me — he was ready to try and complete the task they were determined to finish.

Time for a run, and I ran like crazy.

As I ran, I was calling for help and stated that I was in trouble. The only thing that did was incite even more mob mentality, and the group of three had a quick mini following — all looking for the sight and smell of the blood that had dried on my face and arms.

I eventually made it to a group of police. The mini group of blood thirsty hooligans decided that the Four Seasons Hotel would be a new place to make trouble, it was only half a block from the police line where I was.

Eventually one tall skinny guy was brought down in cuffs and put in a wagon. I couldn’t be sure if he was part of the original three. I wasn’t going anywhere until I felt it was safe for my wife and I to walk back to Hastings where we were staying. While I was talking to an officer, I looked up and saw the fellow who was after me (and his friend) walking up into the area. I told the police that those were the guys.

The police approached them. Told them to get down. They were not good at following a simple instruction like “get down”. It took five policemen to take them down and to arrest this fellow while he was yelling, “this is police brutality.”

This whole evening taught me nothing.

I have zero recollection about the hockey game, I have zero understanding of what these people were thinking, and I have zero patience for any complaints about the police and the lack of whatever they were supposed to be lacking in.

I salute the two other gentlemen who were ‘working’ the street alongside me. I have the deepest regrets for the badly injured fellow who was beaten for apparently trying to prevent some looting happening at a store (see picture and video).

I am so thankful that I am not amount the count of the seriously injured. But I am physically and emotionally exhausted.

In what was supposed to be a celebration of an extraordinary season of hockey by our great Vancouver Canucks, I am, as I write this, on the verge of tears recounting the events of the night, none of which had the words ‘fan’ or ‘celebration.’

— a proud Vancouverite who did his best to do his part to take back his city: he was not a bystander.