I think the first simple but important lesson we have all learned from the Vancouver riot is that the police need locking gas caps. We all do. Locking gas caps has become as important fundamental crime prevention tool as the steering wheel club.
Who would have thought it was that easy to set a car on fire. These idiots weren't using petrol bombs, they were just stuffing rags in the gas tanks and lighting them. Locking gas caps would be a simple but important deterrent.
The other good thing we learned is that bragging about that kind of stupidity will see your friends turn you in which is wonderful. Setting cars on fire, vandalizing and looting businesses is stealing from us. Nothing to brag about. Reporting those idiots is automatic.
The next step is to enforce fines and civil damages for theft or vandalism. That's an important step. If you're caught trashing something in a riot, you will be forced to pay monetary fines and damages. And if you're an employable anarchist who is out there to crush social peace while you scab off the system and live off welfare, you just got cut off and disqualified yourself for social assistance. Bye bye. Welfare is an important safety net for the down trodden, but not for those employable men who abuse the system.
The other good thing we learned is that if something bad like that happens, the public can volunteer to help clean and rebuild. Something that would take much longer and be much more expensive without volunteers. Smurfs rock.
Well put.
ReplyDeleteAgent K, why do the Police let folks burn their cars?? I see them there, why don't they park them away from things & out-of-sight?
ReplyDeleteWhen the cars burn, why is there not a cop there w/fire-extinguishers to put out the fire? They just let 'em burn, I never see one cop trying to put out the squad-car fires, ever.
And why are the Police fighting the crowd without any riot-gear, esp. helmets, so an Officer got 14 stitches upside the head from flying rocks? Even if the equipment isn't on them, why didn't they bring it in a truck somewheres close, just in case?
I go to Provincial emergencies all the time, in my job as forest-fire fighting team-leader.
Man, when I go to something reported as spot-size, a small lightning-strike, I STILL bring everything including the kitchen sink!
What if I need it...?...neither I nor the VPD has a personal crystal-ball to predict the future, eh...?
If I don't know to bring all the equipment, if I ever let my vehicles just burn up, 'cuz of where I parked the vehicles, I would be fired right after the burn was put out, and rightly so.
Don't our great Boy Scouts have some motto that says, "Be prepared?"
I just think the poor Officers on the front line weren't properly supported by the brass on this.
And now we find out that our wimp Mayor, and his top operations boss, some lady, were right in the VPD command centre, now saying they "didn't interfere at all." Yeah, right.
And that crowd it was all white, not one Chinese or south Asian I could see. A bad day for white folks, makin' you & I look like genetic hooligans!
what do you figure, Agent K?
Yeah I think Kim mentioned about how even the police were concerned about how their transition from meet and greet to bats and hats was too slow. If the police don’t get locking gas caps, I think that would be negligent. You’re right we need to be better prepared. In Toronto at the G-8 the police got their ass kicked the first day. Then they started beating the tar out of anyone who simply had a sign. That concerns me. If they see someone committing a violent act like looting or setting a car on fire then they should use force to take that person down and arrest them. I don’t think they should go to the other extreme and arrest people just for holding a sign in a political protest.
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall that the police are allowed to use deadly force against an arsonist who is observed in the process of committing that crime.......I could be thinking about another jurisdiction though.
ReplyDeleteI love this idiot's excuse, "I was just caught up in the moment." He's lucky he didn't get shot. Of course VPD have themselves been excused some of their behavior in previous riots....Remember the guy who was just walking through the area around then GM Place with his son who got his teeth knocked out with a riot stick back in 2002, the "Guns and Roses Riot"? That was exactly the cops defense, and the judge bought it. All the initial police lies about the citizen's supposed behavior that justified his being attacked out of the blue were proven false when the whole thing was caught on film, quality was good enough you could see the guy's teeth sailing through the air IIRC.....the tape proved he was an innocent bystander, no punishment for the police officer lying about it in attempt to avoid being punished for his misdeed either.
Further new Freedom of Information Act requests have yielded:
ReplyDelete"A June 13 advice memo to Solicitor General Shirley Bond showed liquor pour outs, violation tickets and arrests skyrocketed when the eventual champion Boston Bruins visited Rogers Arena. On June 4, the night of game two, there were 891 pour-outs, 40 violation tickets for fighting, liquor offences and public urination, 28 breach of peace arrests and 18 arrests for public drunkenness."
Right away, that almost 900 pour-outs hits me. It seems like a very high & worrisome number. And an important future marker not followed up.
"When the Canucks won a third time in game five on June 10, there were 2,000 liquor pour outs recorded by the Vancouver Police, 850 by the Transit Police, 120 violation tickets written and two dozen breach of peace and public drunkenness arrests."
It's clearly getting very much worse here, twice as many pour-outs; and now the breaching of the peace beginning.
"LCLB compliance and enforcement staff witnessed alcohol abuse on June 10. At 5:44 p.m., regional compliance and enforcement manager Donna Lister emailed deputy general manager Bruce Edmundson about the nearest private liquor store to the City of Vancouver-organized Stanley Cup fan zone."
"The sale of micky's out of (Jimmy's Cold Beer and Wine) is amazing," Lister wrote. "Several pourouts but we have seen lots of people go into the west lanes 800 Homer pouring their liquor into cups and in the latest we saw a guy that bought four micky's then got on his phone and met buyers in the lane in an underground parking lot."
"At 9:07 p.m. Edmundson emailed Lister to say: "The ? I have is where are the police."
http://tinyurl.com/3srm94u
A major issue to me is the obvious in-ability of Police Officers to corral drinkers, or more importantly to STOP public drinking. In this, was a huge Policing failure. Yet the VPD asks us to believe this:
"Prior to game seven, there was no substantiated intelligence that a riot would occur," said the report. "No concerns were raised by planners, command staff, or other VPD officers that there would be a riot. Further, there were no public phone calls made to the VPD, no reports from school liaison or youth officers that kids were talking about a riot, no reports from outlying police jurisdictions, Transit Police, or other public safety partners that a riot was likely, and nothing credible appearing on social media sources of people organizing to riot."
Ha Ha, Right-o...