Do you feel safe in Downtown Vancouver? Complaints of stranger assaults, violent shoplifting prompt roundtable discussions
Vancouver's police department and city council say they're hearing time and time again from residents and business owners who feel unsafe in Downtown Vancouver, particularly when it comes to instances of violent shoplifting and assaults by strangers.
Vancouver Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison says police are often dealing with reports of “stranger assaults” multiple times per day.
“Any day of the week, if you ask me, I can probably give you one or two or three different stories of somebody who’s been assaulted by a stranger or a person they didn’t know,” Addison told CTV News Vancouver on Wednesday.
According to the VPD, on average, four people are targeted in unprovoked assaults in Vancouver each day.
Addison detailed several incidents that occurred in the last few days, including:
- Friday night: Officers were called to a hotel on Burrard Street after a family staying there was attacked with a rock. Another tenant staying on the same floor had been on a “drug binge,” which resulted in an altercation in the hallway. The family was then assaulted with a rock. The incident is still under investigation.
- Saturday night: A group of international students were hanging around Science World when another group of young people approached and “for no apparent reason at all” started spraying the first group with bear spray. The incident is still under investigation.
- Sunday Night: A man in his 20s was leaving the Granville SkyTrain station when there was “some kind” of altercation with another group of men. The altercation resulted in the man being “sucker punched” and then hit his head on the sidewalk. The man is now in hospital with “serious head trauma.”
- Monday night: A 20-year-old international student was walking near the intersection of Granville and Georgia streets when, “for some unknown reason,” a woman approached and pushed her lit cigarette into the man’s neck. A witness followed the suspect and called police, and the suspect was arrested.
The spate of assaults follows detailed accounts from business owners about crime downtown.
When it comes to incidents of violent shoplifting (shoplifting with a weapon and shoplifting where violence is involved), 2021 is on pace to see a 43 per cent increase over 2020, and a 700 per cent increase over 2019, according to information presented at the Vancouver Police Board meeting last Thursday.
“We’re hearing from people who live, work and own businesses in the downtown core that they’re frustrated, that they need help,” Addison said. “We’re trying to be part of the solution.”
VPD has already increased the focus of patrols on key trouble spots, such as Davie and Granville streets.
CTV News spoke with people on the streets of the West End who say there’s a sense of unease downtown.
A 27-year-old woman said she was yelled at and harassed by a stranger in a West End park over summer.
“(The man) made me feel very uncomfortable,” she said. “I ended up buying a little knife just in case I was walking home and someone was giving me a hard time.”
Elliot Ebel, who works downtown, said he exercises “heightened awareness.”
“I’ve seen more violence; I’ve seen more homelessness,” Ebel said. “You’re a little bit more wary around what’s happening in the darker corners of the city.”
But the statistics don’t show a dramatic increase in incidents. According to figures from VPD, there were 3,490 assaults from January to September of 2020, compared to 3,508 during the same period in 2021.
“They only show part of the story and we know these crimes that we’re talking about are hugely underreported,” Addison said, adding that in many cases, people are taking to social media to describe their experiences.
“We’re now deploying police officers to check in with those people to offer support, to investigate, to see if they want to make a police report,” he said.
Vancouver City Council is also looking for tangible solutions. Earlier this month, council passed a public safety motion put forward by Coun. Melissa DeGenova.
“We can’t keep pointing fingers, we can’t wash our hands of our responsibility,” DeGenova said. “Every single person should feel safe in the City of Vancouver.”
The motion calls for council staff to host roundtable discussions with organizations that are “touched by this issue,” a group that includes Business Improvement Associations, VPD, BC Housing and the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions.
DeGenova said council needs to take a more proactive approach, particularly after the city advocated for the province to purchase hotels like the Howard Johnson on Granville Street to provide temporary housing through the pandemic.
“We can’t pick up a Strathcona Park encampment, move it into the middle of downtown Vancouver and pat ourselves on the back and say we’ve done a great job here,” DeGenova said.
The roundtable discussions will be taking place through November, with council staff set to submit a report with recommendation in December.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
For the first time in report's history, Canada's air quality worse than U.S.
Air quality in Canada is now worse than in the U.S., according to the 6th Annual World Air Quality Report. Of the 15 most polluted cities in the two countries, 14 were in Canada.
A newspaper says video of Prince William and Kate should halt royal rumour mill. That's a tall order
Prince William and his wife Catherine have been filmed at a farm shop near their Windsor home, The Sun newspaper reported -- the first footage of Kate since she had abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition two months ago.
BREAKING Roy McMurtry, former Ontario attorney general, dies at 91
CTV News has confirmed that former Ontario attorney general Roy McMurtry has died.
Hertz CEO out following electric car 'horror show'
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
'You ask for your money, they disappear': Ontario man loses $17K to AI crypto scam
A Toronto man is spreading the word of a cryptocurrency scam that lures victims using AI-generated news sites after he lost $17,000 in investments.
DEVELOPING Canada's annual inflation rate ticked down to 2.8 per cent in February, defying expectations
Statistics Canada says the annual inflation rate edged down to 2.8 per cent in February.
High thoughts: The habits of Canadian cannabis users are revealed in a new StatCan report
Statistics Canada has conducted a series of surveys to measure the impacts of legalized cannabis since the Cannabis Act took effect in 2018. The latest one, the 2023 National Cannabis Survey, sheds light on users' preferences and habits last year.
Demand soars for solar eclipse glasses in Canada. Are they worth buying?
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
Trump says Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and their religion
Former U.S. president Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and hate 'their religion,' igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.