A violent incident in downtown Vancouver that ended Wednesday with police fatally shooting a suspect has renewed concerns about public safety in the city.
Video of the incident shows police shooting a man who had allegedly stabbed one person and wounded another.
Police said they were responding to a report of a man who had stolen alcohol from the Original Joe’s restaurant and was armed with a knife.
Officers located the man at the 7-Eleven at Robson and Hamilton where the incident happened.
Despite life-saving efforts, the suspect died in hospital. The two victims’ injuries are not believed to be life-threatening.
A day later, fears linger in the community. Across the street from the convenience store, the owner of a local bike shop has begun locking himself inside his own business.
“I pulled across the security gates and locked the door, just because I thought if I’m in here by myself I’m working, I just want to see who’s coming,” Simon’s Bike Shop owner Simon Coutts told Global News on Thursday.
Downtown Van, the organization that represents businesses in the city core, said the violent incident highlights the need for urgent action on public safety.
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“Understandably people are frustrated, in a lot of cases, people are angry,” Downtown Van president and CEO Jane Talbot said.
“They, like us, are calling on every level of government to act urgently on public safety in our city.”
Talbot said she believes both the provincial and federal governments take the issue seriously, but that neither has been acting with enough urgency.
“The status quo is not working and our businesses, our employees and our citizens are paying the price,” she said.
It’s a message echoed by Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, who said that despite calls for change, senior levels of government have done nothing to help people feel safe.
“We come here all the time and we saw, we look at the data that Vancouver is still a very safe city but incidents like this just really hit us to our core and it keeps people on edge,” he said.
Kash Heed, a former police chief and former B.C. solicitor general who now serves as a city councillor in Richmond, said the incident highlights how the province is still relying on law enforcement to deal with addiction, mental health and homelessness issues.
“The fact remains we have people in a crisis who are occupying our public spaces, and they are creating fear in the community and we do not have an appropriate level of government policy to deal with it,” he said.
Heed said in the run-up to the provincial election there was talk from both major parties about using involuntary care as a response to people facing the most difficult mental health and drug issues.
But he said nothing has happened since then.
“It has all been talk so far. There is no concrete action or even direction towards a policy change for it,” he said. “We seem to have kneejerk responses for a crisis that the community has faced for many decades.”
B.C. Premier David Eby said Thursday that action was coming on that front.
“This is not a problem that’s going to be solved with any one strategy,” he said.
“I think involuntary care for a small group of people is going to be a significant impact. There’s a small group that can cause a huge amount of chaos.”
The Independent Investigations Office, which investigates police-involved incidents, is investigating the role police played in Wednesday’s incident.
Vancouver police said they are starting to figure out what happened.
“We don’t have all the answers, and we’re going to trust that through the courses of the investigation, not only the Vancouver Police investigation but the independent investigation that’s going to be done by the Independent Investigations Office, we’ll trust that those processes will find all the answers that we’re looking for,” Sgt. Steve Addison with the Vancouver police said.
He added that Wednesday was a difficult day for everyone in the city, whether they were directly affected or saw a video of the incident.
“Very traumatic day,” Addison said. “Incidents like this are very troubling. Disturbing. And we absolutely understand that when incidents like this occur, they do cause people to feel less safe in their community.”
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