Letters from the Front Lines: Vancouver Riot

Still sickened

I was in downtown Vancouver during the Stanley Cup riot. In fact I was standing next to The Hudson’s Bay building at approx. 8:20 (waiting for the sky train crowd to die down a bit) near the corner of Georgia and Granville when a girl who was innocently standing with her boyfriend next to me had a large alcohol bottle thrown at her from a several storey parking garage across the street. Her head and face were bleeding profusely. The crowd was thick and it was impossible to see where police were for help so a group of us circled around her to protect her. We took her into an alcove where the entrance to The Bay is. Many onlookers including myself pleaded with a uniformed security guard who was standing just inside the doors of The Hudson’s Bay building. We were pleading for anything - to let her in, to call an ambulance, to radio for help. This guard saw the bloodied girl, examined her with a raised eyebrow and glaring expression through the doors, turned around and walked away into the store. The guard didn’t mouth “I’m sorry, I can’t open the door.”, the guard didn’t do ANYTHING. People show their true colours in times of crisis and I am still very sickened by the lack of human compassion I witnessed. 

— a proud Vancouverite