One obstacle to laying charges against the participants in Vancouver's Stanley Cup riot might be how police handled reading the riot act, according to a criminologist.

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu has defended the lack of any charges almost three months after the riot, saying that he wants the people responsible for the chaos of June 15 to face riot charges, rather than the less serious crimes of theft and mischief.

But a government report has found that the riot act wasn't read out to the crowds of looters and troublemakers until 8:26 p.m., long after police cars and other property had been destroyed.

And not everyone heard the announcement, a failing that Simon Fraser University criminologist Rob Gordon says could have a big impact.

"That would have been one of the issues -- it would have been very hard to hear it. This particular event was dispersed over several locations. It wasn't a single mass of people rioting," he told CTV News.

Anyone found guilty of participating in a riot can be sentenced to as long as two years in jail.

A review of the Stanley Cup riot released last week found that a high-powered loudspeaker system had to be plugged into a police vehicle because its batteries had not been charged. That means that moving the system through the crowded city streets was not possible.

At the same time, an RCMP unit on Granville Street was battling three different crowds. Their loudspeaker malfunctioned, and the rioters were not warned that tear gas was coming.

That kind of policing failure has many critics pointing the finger at Chu, a blame game that Gordon says isn't entirely fair.

"I sense there are attempts being made to throw Jim Chu under a bus. Certainly, he has to take responsibility for some things, but he is very much a victim of the disorganized nature of policing in the Metro area," he said.

Still, the long wait for charges against the rioters isn't helping the police department.

"While they are dickering around trying to make decisions, they are losing public faith," he said.

So far, police have positively identified hundreds of suspects. In less than a week since establishing a new website picturing the 40 most-wanted rioters, investigators have put another seven names to faces.

The VPD will reveal its internal review of the riot at a police board meeting on Tuesday.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Lisa Rossington