A privately owned security camera captured footage of what appears to be a handful of people shooting fireworks at passersby at an East Vancouver intersection on Halloween night.
No injuries were reported as a result of the incident at East Hastings Street and Templeton Drive, Vancouver police confirmed Wednesday.
“No arrests were made, the crowds did disperse,” Const. Tania Visintin told Global News.
The video seems to show the mischief-makers aiming Roman candles at trick-or-treaters, who scurry away down East Hastings. When a police car pulls over, the suspects make a dash for it.
Cliff Smith, who owns the device, said he swivelled the camera around to face the chaos when he noticed what was going on from his monitor at home.
He often posts videos from his camera on social media that show safety concerns near the intersection, like vehicle accidents, and told Global News Oct. 31’s incident concerned him.
“It made me very angry. I don’t want people to feel comfortable coming into my neighbourhood and hurting anybody,” he said.
“Some of (the victims) may have had clothing that may have been flammable … I’m very upset that this happens.”
Despite that video, and another video that shows fireworks going off outside a McDonald’s on Granville Street, Vancouver police said there were “no major issues” on Halloween.
“Crowds were behaved and our officers did a good job of keeping the city safe last night,” said Visintin.
Vancouver Fire Rescue Services also attended calls on Tuesday, including two fireworks-related incidents that caused some damage.
“One where we had basically a small brush fire,” said public information officer Capt. Matthew Trudeau, “and we did have an event where fireworks actually broke a window, got into a school.”
On Wednesday, a window at the Moberly Arts and Cultural Centre was boarded up. The dumpster outside also appeared to have sustained damage.
Trudeau said there was no fire inside the building, just smoke. There were more than 100 complaints filed about fireworks, however.
Nevertheless, the captain said general Halloween debauchery has decreased in Vancouver in recent years.
“Previous years, we were into the hundreds of thousands of dollars … of property loss with one, two, three or four injuries each year for Halloween,” he said. “Since then, in the last three years, we’ve seen a decline, thankfully.”
Use of fireworks in Vancouver is banned, apart from special permitted public events.
— with files from Angela Jung
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