‘A number of people’ killed in Vancouver after driver drives into crowd at festival

[CdnFox]

'A number of people' killed in Vancouver after driver drives into crowd at festival

There's no additional details of this time. The driver is in custody but nobody knows whether this was an accident or intentional or what happened. All of the sources do seem to confirm however that there was loss of life.

[CdnFox]

UPDATE: Multiple people killed, injured at Lapu Lapu Day in Vancouver | Vancouver Sun

 

Bit of an update. They're saying it seems like the guy has a mental health this issue rather than it being a hate crime. Of course it's way too early to trust any of the reports just yet but it sounds like at least seven people are dead and many others injured

[CDN1]

Horrible. This one doesn't look like it was terrorism, but I can see incidents like it becoming common place in Canada over the coming years.

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, CDN1 said:

Horrible. This one doesn't look like it was terrorism, but I can see incidents like it becoming common place in Canada over the coming years.

Well it's not the first time and it probably won't be the last.

[CdnFox]

The Latest

• Interim Vancouver Police Chief Steve Rai just provided more information on last night’s attack.
• A driver rammed into a crowd at the Lapu Lapu Day Block Party shortly after 8 p.m. PT Saturday, as the event was wrapping up.
• Eleven people were killed, according to Rai, and “dozens more” were injured.
• A suspect was held by bystanders until officers arrived at the scene, interim Vancouver Police Chief Steve Rai said.
• A 30-year-old man is in police custody, according to Rai.
• The mass casualty event is not being investigated as an act of terrorism, police said.

8 minutes ago

'The history we have with him' suggests attack was not terrorism, Rai said

Verity Stevenson

Vancouver police said early on they did not believe the suspect's motives included terrorism.

Rai said that's because "for terrorism, there should be some political, religious ideology, ideation behind it."

He said "the history we have with him," which includes mental health-related incidents, suggests "there wasn't any other indicators."

The 30-year-old male suspect, who is in custody, is a Vancouver resident and was driving a black Audi SUV, Rai said.

[CdnFox]

11 dead so far. That makes it tied for I believe second or third spot as Canadians worst ever in modern history. The other one with the same body count also involved a van attack.

[WestCanMan]

They're getting out ahead of the release of the perp's name with stories about his own personal mental health issues. 

[CdnFox]

Just now, WestCanMan said:

They're getting out ahead of the release of the perp's name with stories about his own personal mental health issues. 

I think they're also a little worried that people are going to panic believing that this is in some way tied with some of the civil unrest we've seen and that there might be additional perpetrators out there willing to commit these crimes again. If it's just one nut bar and we've got him in custody then people will feel slightly less panicked

[blackbird]

Multiple interactions with police and with health authorities, yet he was not committed to a mental institution.

Recently the BC NDP government said there are over 2,500 people in B.C. either addicted and/or with mental health issues and they announced they opened a ten bed facility in Surrey for involuntary treatment.  This is a drop in the bucket and woefully inadequate. 

This kind of event is a result of the inadequate mental health involuntary care in Canada and the liberal laws that enable catch and release and giving priority over the freedom of individuals even with mental problems over the safety of society.

The media and politicians keep saying this is not the result of "terrorism".   Hmmm.

So what does that mean?  That nothing particular needs to be done?   I hope they don't think because it doesn't fall under a certain definition of "terrorism" that it means there is nothing that needs to be done.  This is certainly a result of the liberal laws that enable people who are a danger to society to be out on the loose.  

And it certainly is a form of terrorism to all the people who have been directly affected and their loved one.

Edited April 27 by blackbird

[CdnFox]

2 minutes ago, blackbird said:

Multiple interactions with police and with health authorities, yet he was not committed to a mental institution.

Recently the BC NDP government said there are over 2,500 people in B.C. either addicted and/or with mental health issues and they announced they opened a ten bed facility in Surrey for involuntary treatment.  This is a drop in the bucket and woefully inadequate. 

This kind of event is a result of the inadequate mental health involuntary care in Canada.

The media and politicians keep saying this is not the result of "terrorism".   Hmmm.

So what does that mean?  That nothing particular needs to be done?   I hope they don't think because it doesn't fall under a certain definition of "terrorism" that it means there is nothing that needs to be done.  This is certainly a result of the liberal laws that enable people who are a danger to society to be out on the loose.  

And it certainly is a form of terrorism to all the people who have been directly affected and their loved one.

Well as far as the cops are concerned the message there is we don't need to be afraid of a co-conspiracor driving another van through another group of people. They're rushing to try and make sure that everyone understands this is a one-off event and not likely the beginning of a series of attacks.

It's a little early to say. This person may very well have had access to significant mental health resources. However they may not have been interested in pursuing that. I know of several cases, one that hit home personally, where people with mental health challenges are treated by medical experts and given medicines that will help correct their problem. But they tend to go off the medicine because it doesn't make them feel very well. They think they're coping so they stop using it and decide that they will go back to using it if they start having reoccurrences of the problem.

Unfortunately these drugs are not the kind of drugs that you can take when you need them. They take time to begin to have an effect, they're not like a painkiller. And so the people often become very dangerously psychotic without warning even after months or years of having their condition under control.

I'm really not 100% sure how you beat that. You could pass laws that say if the person is constantly having relapses or going off their meds then you could have a law that forces compulsion for them to have to be incarcerated while they are treated. And incarceration doesn't necessarily mean jail it could mean at a hospital or something similar.

But I know that in many of these cases it's not a lack of treatment options, it's that you are relying on people with mental health issues to make good choices. One doesn't have to be a doctor to see the problem with that

[blackbird]

32 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

Well as far as the cops are concerned the message there is we don't need to be afraid of a co-conspiracor driving another van through another group of people. They're rushing to try and make sure that everyone understands this is a one-off event and not likely the beginning of a series of attacks.

It's a little early to say. This person may very well have had access to significant mental health resources. However they may not have been interested in pursuing that. I know of several cases, one that hit home personally, where people with mental health challenges are treated by medical experts and given medicines that will help correct their problem. But they tend to go off the medicine because it doesn't make them feel very well. They think they're coping so they stop using it and decide that they will go back to using it if they start having reoccurrences of the problem.

Unfortunately these drugs are not the kind of drugs that you can take when you need them. They take time to begin to have an effect, they're not like a painkiller. And so the people often become very dangerously psychotic without warning even after months or years of having their condition under control.

I'm really not 100% sure how you beat that. You could pass laws that say if the person is constantly having relapses or going off their meds then you could have a law that forces compulsion for them to have to be incarcerated while they are treated. And incarceration doesn't necessarily mean jail it could mean at a hospital or something similar.

But I know that in many of these cases it's not a lack of treatment options, it's that you are relying on people with mental health issues to make good choices. One doesn't have to be a doctor to see the problem with that

Yes,  I understand what you are saying.  The problem is in the last half of the 20th century Canadian society started to change it's attitude toward mental institutions for involuntary care and shifted more toward giving rights in individuals with mental problems to be free if they so wish.  Then in 1982, Pierre Trudeau, the champion of liberal ideology brought in his Charter of Rights and this was used by courts and politicians to champion everyone's right to not be forced into a mental institution and also to not be held in bail or prisons if they could possibly be released, even on conditions and a blind belief that they could trusted to follow certain rules.  These ideas became entrenched in liberal ideology as being progressive.  Judges were appointed with this ideology to uphold it as a proper interpretation of the Charter of Rights.  

When mental institutions were closed over the last 40 years, it was believed the communities would be better suited to take care of the mentally ill.  It never happened.  Towns or cities are not equipped at all to deal with the mentally ill.  Now the mentally ill are camped on the streets, taking drugs, dying of overdoses and committing crimes and assaults daily.  When they are arrested, they are almost always immediately released by judges.  The serious offenders that harm people may be referred to a provincial mental health department but they are not put in an institution and not jailed.  They are free to carry on.

Edited Sunday at 05:54 PM by blackbird

[CdnFox]

24 minutes ago, blackbird said:

Yes,  I understand what you are saying.  The problem is in the last half of the 20th century Canadian society started to change it's attitude toward mental institutions for involuntary care and shifted more toward giving rights in individuals with mental problems to be free if they so wish.  Then in 1982, Pierre Trudeau, the champion of liberal ideology brought in his Charter of Rights and this was used by courts and politicians to champion everyone's right to not be forced into a mental institution and also to not be held in bail or prisons if they could possibly be released, even on conditions and a blind belief that they could trusted to follow certain rules.  These ideas became entrenched in liberal ideology as being progressive.  Judges were appointed with this ideology to uphold it as a proper interpretation of the Charter of Rights.  

When mental institutions were closed over the last 40 years, it was believed the communities would be better suited to take care of the mentally ill.  It never happened.  Towns or cities are not equipped at all to deal with the mentally ill.  Now the mentally ill are camped on the streets, taking drugs, dying of overdoses and committing crimes and assaults daily.  When they are arrested, they are almost always immediately released by judges.  The serious offenders that harm people may be referred to a provincial mental health department but they are not put in an institution and not jailed.  They are free to carry on.

At the same time there is some validity to that. Imagine if the state had the ability to declare anyone they wanted mentally incompetent and have them locked up. That's been abused in history more than once and I'm afraid of giving someone like Justin Trudeau that kind of power over the citizenry

So how do you circle that square?

[blackbird]

6 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

At the same time there is some validity to that. Imagine if the state had the ability to declare anyone they wanted mentally incompetent and have them locked up. That's been abused in history more than once and I'm afraid of giving someone like Justin Trudeau that kind of power over the citizenry

So how do you circle that square?

I think the Conservatives campaign platform has some good starting points to stop the rampant crime.  Stop the catch and release bail system.  Put drug dealers behind bars for life.   I think there are ways to determine who should be forced into involuntary treatment for drug addition and who has mental problems and are too dangerous to be released.  Some of these people out on the streets have had dozens of interactions with the police and legal system but are still out committing crimes.  Poilievre said recently a relatively small number of offenders (a few dozen) are responsible for thousands of arrests and offences.

Edited Sunday at 06:13 PM by blackbird

[CdnFox]

3 minutes ago, blackbird said:

I think the Conservatives campaign platform has some good starting points to stop the rampant crime.  Stop the catch and release bail system.  Put drug dealers behind bars for life.   I think there are ways to determine who should be forced into involuntary treatment for drug addition and who has mental problems and are too dangerous to be released.  Some of these people out on the streets have had dozens of interactions with the police and legal system but are still out committing crimes.  Poilievre said recently a relatively small number of offenders (a few dozen) are responsible for thousands of arrests and offences.

I agree with everything you said, I just don't see how it's going to help the treatment of mental health people who refuse treatment. I suppose you could argue that by locking them up when they do commit a violent crime you can then require treatment as part of their Eventual release, but in the meantime they've committed a crime.

Honestly it is so common it's not funny that people suffering from serious mental health issues get treatment, but then stop taking the treatment and become violent again. That kind of sounds like it may turn out to be the case here. How do you beat that kind of thing?

Edited Sunday at 06:17 PM by CdnFox

[WestCanMan]

12 minutes ago, blackbird said:

The media and politicians keep saying this is not the result of "terrorism".   Hmmm.

I've never seen the media and politicians try so hard to distance an attack like this from terrorism when it was a white guy who did it. 

Eg: The car of the Charlottesville attacker was attacked by a guy with a bat the instant before he sped off, but video of the scene, as shown by the MSM, is always started after the attack on his car and makes no mention of it. But he was not fleeing an angry, violent mob...

Eg: Darrel Brooks killed about ten people and injured 50+, using the same vehicle that he used to run over his GF just two months earlier. He was also extremely politically active in favour of BLM and had posted about the Rittenhouse verdict just days before plowing through the crowd a few miles away from the courthouse where the Rittenhouse verdict was decided. But according to the MSM: "Brooks was fleeing a domestic dispute that happened a few miles away, that wasn't captured on video, when he just mowed his way through that crowd, running over more than fifty people."

Eg: The Danforth shooter told people on the street "you're not in danger, I'm only looking for white people", but he wasn't religious, just had mental health issues, etc.

But every single act of vandalism against a synogogue counts as a "white supremacist terrorist attack", none of them wer by muslims, and attacks against Christian churches are all considered "we didn't see nothin'.".

[Aristides]

Apparently he has had several interactions with police but until we know what kind they were, I'm not jumping to conclusions. Were they because he was presenting a danger to others or  people were worried about him harming himself?  Most mentally ill people are a greater danger to themselves than to others. 

I think it is very important that police should state whether they think something like this was motivated by terrorism or not. 

[SpankyMcFarland]

1 hour ago, blackbird said:

When mental institutions were closed over the last 40 years, it was believed the communities would be better suited to take care of the mentally ill.  It never happened.  

The old asylums were horrible places and the arrival of effective antipsychotic medication in the Fifties brought a revolution in effective care, as disturbed patients suddenly required much less physical restraint. The first psychiatrist I can find that published his use of the French drug Largactil in Canada, and North America for that matter, was Heinz Lehmann in Montreal’s Verdun Protestant Hospital in 1954.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/archneurpsyc/article-abstract/651712?resultClick=1

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2655089/#b48-ndt-3-495

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Lehmann

At the time there was understandable concern about the conditions in psychiatric hospitals and the rights of patients. Community care, combined with medication and appropriate counselling, was seen as a more humane alternative. Unfortunately, the cost of such care and who was responsible for it were less well defined than the mechanics of running large public institutions, giving governments in Canada and across the world - we were by no means alone in this - the opportunity to greatly reduce current budgets while making commitments for the future that they never fulfilled. Thus the number of psychiatric beds in Canada declined from 430 per 100,000 in 1959 to 70 per 100,000 in 2017, a grossly inadequate number. For too many, the worthy goal of deinstitutionalization became simply dehospitalization.

https://madridge.org/journal-of-internal-and-emergency-medicine/mjiem-1000103.php

With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to see now that the goal should have been to improve institutional care, moving carefully selected patients to community care only when that was adequately funded. Looking back, the level of optimism about a new and completely untested system was absurdly high. 

There is a sociological element to this story that we should be honest about. People with chronic psychotic disorders are not politically powerful. They don’t have the advocates for their care that sick children or breast cancer patients have. Unless money for them is ring-fenced, politicians will inevitably respond to what the public calls more loudly for.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 07:28 PM by SpankyMcFarland

[WestCanMan]

29 minutes ago, Aristides said:

Most mentally ill people are a greater danger to themselves than to others. 

Nice snuck premise, hotshot. 

Now do the Charlottesville car attack. Or any other attack that you can name where a white person attacked a minority...

Or how about you take your bullshit excuse that's always applied along political lines and shove it up your arse? 

"We can lump this attack into an political attack on conservatives, so this story is 100% about political/racial activism, but that attack was against white people, churches, people at a country music festival, or it was by a minority/immigrant so it has to be lumped into the "mental health issue" category".

Right? Can you name the example that goes against the grain? Was an attack by a white guy against a minority ever due to a mental health issue, Aristedes? Care to find me that example? 

We're up into the hundreds of churches burned, assh0le. Where's that story? And why is Rosemary Barton pretending that there were bodies of children discovered in mass graves, to continue spreading the false backstory behind the great reason for burning churches? 

Wanna know who's mentally unhealthy? Rosemary "lying b1tch" Barton, and everyone who considers her a legitimate member of the journalistic community.

Edited Sunday at 07:10 PM by WestCanMan

[Michael Hardner]

16 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

There is a sociological element to this change that we should be honest about. People with chronic psychotic disorders are not politically powerful. They don’t have the advocates for their care that sick children or breast cancer patients have. 

Indeed, this is true and I suspect that The political power of those who don't want these people to be an eyesore.... Camping in our Parks... Or existing for that matter... Far outweighs the power of the afflicted. 

 

And yet, this system of collaborative and coordinated neglect is how we run all of our public institutions. So we get Rock bottom public costs, and problems not being solved, sometimes getting worse. 

 

And somehow this lowest common denominator still becomes fuel for populism. 

 

Once in awhile there's a huge event and everybody gets out of their chairs and starts yelling for a couple of weeks, then we go back to it.

[WestCanMan]

16 minutes ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

The old asylums were horrible places and the arrival of effective antipsychotic medication in the Fifties brought a revolution in effective care, as disturbed patients suddenly required much less physical restraint.

That's true, but:

1. it's also truthful to say that a lot of people who are theoretically considered "only safe if medicated" are wandering our streets, and only taking their meds of their own volition
2. there are also a lot of people who are undiagnosed, and have been found guilty of multiple-and-increasingly-harmful violent offences, who are let out on low bail, or early on probation, etc, and we don't need those people on our streets. They don't contribute to society, and it's only ever a matter of time before they inflict themselves on innocent victims again. We see that over and over, but the same group of people just keeps giving violent reoffenders chance after chance to reoffend - with eerily predictable results. 

[Army Guy]

5 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

Indeed, this is true and I suspect that The political power of those who don't want these people to be an eyesore.... Camping in our Parks... Or existing for that matter... Far outweighs the power of the afflicted. 

 

And yet, this system of collaborative and coordinated neglect is how we run all of our public institutions. So we get Rock bottom public costs, and problems not being solved, sometimes getting worse. 

 

And somehow this lowest common denominator still becomes fuel for populism. 

 

Once in awhile there's a huge event and everybody gets out of their chairs and starts yelling for a couple of weeks, then we go back to it.

Have you seen how the average Canadian treats the homeless, with disdain or worse...those in power are are a true reflection of the people they serve....And most Canadians answer to this issue is on health care or police as they dont want to see them or have them in their communities. Like anything in Canada if it does not effect their person bubble they are not interested...

[SpankyMcFarland]

2 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

That's true, but:

1. it's also truthful to say that a lot of people who are theoretically considered "only safe if medicated" are wandering our streets, and only taking their meds of their own volition

Many of the newer antipsychotic drugs are in tablet form which is fine for most patients but not for those who tend to stop taking them as they become more paranoid and violent. I know one person in another country whose life was changed for the better by going back to an injectable drug delivered by nurses at a clinic. If he didn’t turn up they came to the house.  

[SpankyMcFarland]

My views on care for disturbed young adults are fairly paternalistic by modern standards. I would rate their safety (and the safety of others) as a major concern.  

[BeaverFever]

1 hour ago, blackbird said:

Multiple interactions with police and with health authorities, yet he was not committed to a mental institution.

Interactions with police doesn’t mean criminal activity or a threat to safety. It can just mean behaving strangely or even just making bizarre phone calls . And so in all likelihood police came by and took them to a hospital for evaluation or gave them a warning of some sort. We don’t “commit” people to “mental institutions” unless there’s a credible reason to believe they are a threat to harm themselves or others.  A free society should not be locking people up simply for being “odd”. 
 

That said I am close to someone who is highly educated and successful who went through about 10 years of untreated mental illness before eventually recovering. During that time she had multiple police interactions, and in the very beginning she was actually held in Milton penitentiary for 4 weeks while awaiting trial for email harassment of a US corporation if you can believe it.   Even the worst email harasser in history wouldn’t be sentenced to 4 weeks in prison especially for a foreign corporate “victim” and the case was eventually thrown out anyway. She was kept in the hospital wing but received ZERO mental health treatment, she was simply warehoused. If only she had received treatment she might not have lost the next decade of her life repeatedly getting fired from jobs,  evicted from apartments and going in and out of hospitals on the 72-hour mental health hold which did nothing   It wasn’t until she finally was admitted on the 2-week mental health hold that she finally had a breakthrough and it was like a curse had been lifted.   My takeaway from having witnessed it all is that the healthcare system should have sufficient resources for the mental health inpatient care such that hospitals don’t feel they have to deprioritize and cut loose some MH cases after 72hrs. Also when police take someone to the hospital they’re often waiting in emergency with the patient for hours sometimes 8-10 hours before the patient is evaluated which gives the cops a disincentive to actually take people in crisis to the hospital. And considering that the majority of prison inmates havve a mental health diagnosis it’s shocking to me that there’s little to no effective MH treatment in prison. 

 

[blackbird]

1 minute ago, SpankyMcFarland said:

Many of the newer antipsychotic drugs are in tablet form which is fine for most patients but not for those who tend to stop taking them as they become more paranoid and violent. I know one person in another country whose life was changed for the better by going back to an injectable drug delivered by nurses at a clinic. If he didn’t turn up they came to the house.  

This reminds me, years ago a met a man who receives an injection once a month for mental issues.  If he doesn't show up for the injection, the police go and get him and take him to the health unit for the injection.

The thing is today I think there are thousands of people with mental issues and there are attacks every day on innocent people.  What would you say the solution should be?   I would be interested in hearing about a real solution that is going to protect law-abiding citizens, not the so-called rights of dangerous mentally-ill people.

I think society has gone too far one way on the freedoms side.