Report says Vancouver rioters were prepared, while police were confused and lost control

VANCOUVER – Police were in a state of confusion and had lost control of the massive crowd hours before Game 7 of the Stanley Cup series even began, says a report reviewing the June 15 riot.

The report released Thursday paints a frightening picture of a crowd ballooning out of control before the puck dropped, with thousands of people unexpectedly packing the city’s downtown, many of them drunk.

The police, meanwhile, were gearing up for a scenario that had already passed them by, and when the riot was in full swing, they found themselves without the right gear or tools that worked.

Doug Keefe, a former deputy justice minister who completed the review with former Vancouver Olympic committee head John Furlong, said police began arriving very slowly on the afternoon before the Vancouver Canucks faced off against the Boston Bruins.

Their briefing took place at 5 p.m., two and a half hours before the game started.

Fans had been arriving since noon.

“The fans arrived before most of the police,” Keefe said. “The opportunity to set the tone was lost.”

Even if they’d had the chance, maintaining that tone would have been impossible, he added.

As many as 60 stores were trashed or looted, windows were smashed and cars were overturned and burned in the five-hour-long melee.

The report issued by Keefe and Furlong contains 53 recommendations for doing things differently in the future.

Among them are suggestions for more powers to dampen the sale of alcohol for regional events, that a regional tactical squad made up of the RCMP, the Vancouver police and others be formed to deal with huge public events and that a special court be established to deal with people accused of rioting.

The crowd ballooned to more than 155,000 as people, many already drunk and spurred on by social media, poured into the downtown core, overwhelming police and pushing against the barricades that were supposed to have held them back. One officer noted that some people who wanted to get away from the crushing crowd couldn’t do that.

Keefe said Vancouver police had successfully used a meet-and-greet strategy in the previous games, mingling with the crowd and making their presence known.

But that was impossible from the outset on June 15.

“The meet-and-greet strategy … cannot function in that (size of crowd.) You cannot meet and greet anybody, you cannot navigate that crowd.”

When it became clear police had to shift gears and move into riot mode, communication and logistical problems meant it took up to 40 minutes for officers to change into their gear and get back on the ground.

The riot gear was stashed too far away from the where the officers were stationed and by the time the riot squad got there and officers returned to their posts, the fires were already burning.

The report found the RCMP commander at the south end of the crowd had a Vancouver police radio that didn’t work and as a result, didn’t hear the order for officers to get into their riot gear.

This meant the officers weren’t wearing the right equipment for the job they were suddenly ordered to do and the RCMP at that end of the riot ended up being out of radio contact for the rest of the melee.

It also meant that small groups of RCMP officers weren’t able to change into their gear gradually, meaning when they all had to do that at once, there was a “major drop” in police presence at that end of the crowd.

Finally, the report notes that communication with the crowd is considered crucial to ensure police can encourage people to move on before the tear gas starts to fly.

But the report found the batteries on the Vancouver police’s loudspeaker hadn’t been charged, meaning it could only work while attached to a police vehicle.

As for the RCMP, their loudspeaker malfunctioned so the crowd was not warned that tear gas was coming.

“Communication was not used with this crowd until the situation was out of hand,” the report noted.

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu said the report shows there were some problems, but overall, the force performed well.

“We know in hindsight that some mistakes were made, but I’m pleased to see the reviewers concluded that none of the mistakes would have made a substantial difference that night.”

Chu continued to insist there was no way his force could have predicted a riot. The report backs up his contention that there was no police intelligence suggesting there might be one.

Keefe and Furlong also said the riot was propelled through the participants’ social media postings. The only way to counter that, they maintain, is for the police to use social media for their own ends.

The report said many people in the crowd that night just wanted to get out of it, but there was much misinformation flying across social media, including rumours of train station closures and ferry cancellations.

The report noted that technology called cell broadcasting is used in India and South Korea. It could enable police to send official text messages to all cell phones within the range of specific cell towers.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson said the riot and the ensuing report are stern reminders that planners and police should never get complacent.

“I think the whole city had a sense of invincibility after the Olympics and after all of the Stanley Cup playoffs up until Game 7,” he told reporters. “We had hosted and celebrated so many occasions downtown, some of them with an excess of 100,000 people.”

Another report, prepared by city staff and released Thursday afternoon, again pointed to the number of drunk fans pouring into downtown and recommended local governments, the police and other agencies develop a strategy to manage liquor sales and consumption during large events.

“There is no question that too much alcohol played a role in the events of June 15,” says the municipal report, which will be presented to city council next week.

The city report also calls for better planning to manage large events, including creating a detailed database of venues across the city to identify risky scenarios, and expanded close-circuit cameras in the downtown core.

Robertson said he would also like to see much more involvement from the NHL and the Vancouver Canucks in helping to organize such celebration events. He noted other leagues, such as the NFL and the NBA, take active roles in helping host cities.

Canucks Sports and Entertainment issued a news release after the release of the report saying it planned to do all it could to prevent another such riot and plans a targeted message campaign to its fans.

The rampage through the city’s downtown core after the Canucks lost to the Bruins caused millions of dollars in damage and put an asterisk beside the city’s triumphant staging of the Winter Olympics the year before.

The police have come under heavy criticism because no riot-related charges have yet been laid, but Chu held a news conference earlier this week to defend the progress.

He has said police are biding their time to ensure the cases they develop against those identified in more than a thousand hours of videotape are solid enough to support the most serious charges possible.

Robertson has also been criticized for the city’s blithe invitation for people to come downtown to watch the game. He faces a civic election in November.

Furlong and Keefe concluded police and city officials made mistakes in hindsight, but they said they were unwilling to blame anyone other than the rioters, who they referred to as “villains and thugs.”

For the first time, the report also revealed the Vancouver Police Department had 446 officers on the street for Game 7, though that number swelled to 928 by the time the riot was in full swing.

Chu had been under pressure to reveal the number, but had steadfastly refused, saying it was a matter of security.

Furlong and Keefe concluded the speculation over the number had meant the public interest was better served by releasing it.

But they caution against comparisons with the Olympics, where 5,700 officers were on patrol, many of them from other forces.

The authors also note that when Chicago held a downtown victory parade in 2009 to celebrate the Blackhawks Stanley Cup victory, 450 officers and 20 horses policed a crowd of 1.2 million.