Vancouver riots

I started this a few weeks ago but didn't finish it due to the fact that I was on holidays. Thsi happened about 6 weeks ago.

Well as many of you saw on the news, Vancouver was rocked by riots when our local hockey team lost the Campionship final to Boston. That's right, hockey. While Damascus and Cairo have been shut down due to pro-democracy riots and Islamabad is rocked with anti-US riots Vancouver gets hockey riots. It's sad on so many levels. The idiots burned cars, smashed windows and shut down the city centre for about 3 hours. From the North Shore you could see smoke rising from between the buildings. Fortunately the police were able to shut it down quickly and the people responsible are being charged.

For some background: Vancouver's excuse for a city council decided that, during the Stanley Cup Finals, huge screens would be put up in the downtown core so that tens of thousands of people could come out and watch the games together. Liquor sales were banned, but as with all prohibition, that just meant that is couldn't be controlled, people hid it and even more was consumed. Vancouver were favourites to win but lost in the last game to Boston. So now there were thousands of angry, drunk hockey fans downtown. Now the instigators of this riot were not actually Vancouverites and a few weren't even from the province (a so called professional anarchist group from Oregon, who gained notoriety in the 1999 Seattle riots were a key instigator. Don't get me started on professional anarchists either). However, many drunk idiots decided to join them, looting, smashing and attacking anything they could. It was sad and a little pathetic. However, the police were able to shut it down in around 3 hours and the next day there was a huge cleanup of the city by volunteers. It was great to see so many people helping to undue the actions of a small groupof idiots. However, the stories coming out of the riot are also interesting and worth noting.

Social media:  It's amazing to me the way social media has played a part in this. People are being identified through facebook, MSN and MySpace and being reported to the police. This has led to many arrests and the revelation that many of these rioters were not Vancouverites or even Canadian. It's cost these rioters scholarships, jobs and often forced them to leave the city temporarily. As an example a boy from Maple Ridge (a suburb just outside greater Vancouver) who was 17 and on his way to being on the Canadian Olympic polo team was filmed stuffing a rag in to the gas tank of a police car and lighting it on fire. There is also video of him groping a woman (who admittedly was running around topless) before making his escape. He has been identified by name (although he is under 18) through Facebook and is now in custody. He's lost his position on the team, his scholarship and.... well his future. Good job son. After being identified he talked to a lawyer and decided to waive his rights as a minor (irrelevant given that his name was already all over the internet) and come on TV to apologise, claiming these weren't the values he was raised with. Bullsh*t. He rioted and after he got caught and had his name all over the internet decided to apologise. He's sad he was caught. However, one blogger named Captain Canuck published the addresses and phone numbers of the rioters which caused quite a stir, being that some were minors and their families and family businesses were threatened or vandalised as well. This same boy mentioned above had to leave with his family after his fathers office was threatened (he's a doctor with a private practice) and his fathers nursing staff quit fearing for their lives. While I'm thrilled to see this young man ruined his family and certainly his families employees do not deserve this sort of retribution. Its vigilante justice and I wish people would leave them alone.

There have been a few stories like his coming out of the riot, and so far they are receiving very little support. A pchchology professor at SFU tried to bring up the "de-individualising" effects of a mob mentality..... I guess she needed to justify the tenured salary somehow. What that doesn't address is the thousands of people who DIDN'T riot and who tried to get out peacefully. These people rioted over a hockey game, don't make excuses for them.

I'd also like to point out the shameful way in which BC transit decided to shut down as soon as the riot started despite police saying they wanted the buses and subway running and could protect lanes outside the key riot areas (ie - people could walk 10 blocks east and get the subway). This trapped thousands of people downtown and led to more chaos than was needed. People began to follow the police around (and thus the riot) not because they were enjoying it, but because they were only safe with the police. This meant that the police not only had to quell a riot but had to protect thousands of civilians. Those cops all deserve six weeks vacation in Hawaii, and I think BC Transit (who charge the highest fares for bus, subway and ferry use in North America) should pay for it.

Today the city is cleaned up and you'd never know there was a riot. Vancouverites in their thousands turned out to clean up the city, offer support to the police (pre-paid Starbucks cards, cakes etc.) and identify those responsible. It's sad that the thousands of people who did that went under-reported while a few hundred members of the scum of society got so much publicity. Ah well, on to another mass media rant :P