Experts question Vancouver Police Department's approach to combatting stranger attacks

Vancouver police are investigating dozens of assaults in the city, reported in a single weekend.

A large portion of those calls are believed to have been stranger attacks, an issue that’s been escalating in recent months.

Some experts say the VPD’s current strategies are not working.

Officers were called to 60 assaults over Family Day weekend alone.

About one-third of those are believed to have been so-called "stranger" assaults, meaning the victim did not know their assailant.

Self-defense advocates say it’s now more important than ever to be aware of your surroundings.

“It's like driving a car, you don't get in your car every day and think that you're going to get into an accident every day. But you're aware if there's an erratic driver or someone speeding,” said Ryan Diaz, a self-defense instructor and owner of Diaz Combat Sports in Chinatown.

“It’s the same thing when you're walking down the street. If you notice whether it be just strange people or something weird going on, or they even notice something like, say, if you're in a dark alley, try to avoid those situations,” said Diaz.

He says confidence is key and some basic self-defense training will give you that.

“If someone's trying to attack, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to survive,” Diaz explained. “In a self-defense situation, it's not about winning, it's about surviving.”

Const. Tania Visintin of the VPD says the spike in assaults over the weekend was expected because of lifting COVID-19 restrictions at bars and nightclubs and the resulting influx of people downtown.

However, the number of calls was still concerning.

“Just for some context, we usually get about 12 assault calls a day. So, over a three-day period, we had 60, which definitely is quite alarming,” said Visintin.

She says the goal of sharing what happened over the weekend is not to scare people, but to make them aware.

“We don't want people to change their behaviors, change their routes, change their day for this, but knowledge is power. And we want people just to be informed of what's going on,” she said.

According to the VPD, on Friday, a woman threatened a manager at a Choices Market on Richards Street with pepper spray, after throwing a flower pot at him when he told her to leave.

She was located and charged.

Later that day, police say a concierge at a building at Nelson and Seymour streets was punched in the face after telling a food delivery driver to put a mask on.

That was just Friday.

A man was rushed to hospital with stab wounds after a fight on Granville Street early Saturday morning.

Hours later, a bus rider was followed at East 39th Avenue and Victoria Drive and assaulted by two men.

An unconscious man who'd been beaten and robbed was also taken to hospital after he was found in an alley near Davie Street.

A staff member of a hotel was punched in the face after asking an "unruly guest" to leave the building.

Police said someone was arrested and charged in connection with that assault.

The VPD says part of its strategy is to increase boots on the ground in problem areas, but experts argue more specific data on these random attacks is needed to identify trends.

“Do they think they can really just be at the right address or on the right block within the right time frame to end up preventing a crime? Like, that's ridiculous, right?” said Martin Andresen, a Criminology Professor at SFU.

“They might get lucky, but I don't see how an increased police presence – unless they're going to be radically increasing the police budget, which would not be something I think the public would support right now – is going to, it's really going to do much,” Andresen told CTV News.

He’s been analyzing the crime data the VPD has been posting on its website and says it needs more context.

“I found there's an increase in assaults, month to month, in certain areas of the city, but the numbers that they’re reporting, they don't give any context. So it's really hard to decipher what they're referring to.” said Andresen.

He believes a shortage of police is not necessarily the problem either.

“What I do know is that we have a lot more people right now who need social services, we don't need more policing. We need social services to be provided. We need mental health services to be provided. People need to have homes,” Andresen said.

Earlier this month, the VPD reported that the city sees an average of four random attacks a day.

With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Kendra Mangione