VPD hosts safety fair in wake of recent stranger attacks

Vancouver police and several of their partner agencies hosted a Personal Safety and Awareness Fair at Yaletown Roundhouse Community Centre on Saturday.

The event comes on the heels of a number of high-profile violent assaults recently in which the victims and the attackers did not know each other.

On March 1, a senior was pushed from behind and tumbled down the stairs at Granville SkyTrain Station, and just last week an 18-year-old international student was knocked unconscious when a stranger sucker-punched her on a downtown street.

Police were able to identify and arrest suspects in both cases.

“We’re talking about where there’s an unsuspecting victim going about his or her daily activities and gets assaulted, gets punched in the head, gets stabbed, gets poked with a needle. And we get about four a day,” said Vancouver Police Department Deputy Chief Howard Chow.

The safety fair included a presentation by the VPD Women’s Personal Safety Team, which teaches women how to defend themselves in the event of an attack.

A Mount Pleasant woman, who asked not to be identified by name, had already taken an online course with the team and was excited about the opportunity to see them in person.

“(It’s) absolutely so informative and I hope they do more of these,” she told CTV News. "I decided to come because I've been followed twice in the last year in Vancouver."

Others in attendance said they generally feel safe in their community, but are concerned about property crime.

“We have a locked bike shed that someone ripped the lock off of while we were home and stole a bike,” said Valerie Dolgin, who also brought her two young children.

“I thought it was important for my kids to feel comfortable with police officers in the community and to learn more about personal safety.”

Chow hopes events like this will give people the confidence to protect themselves if they need to, and teach them how to be responsible witnesses if they find themselves in that position.

“If you don’t feel safe, if you don’t believe that it’s OK to come out on the streets and go to the park and walk around your neighbourhood, then that’s a problem,” he said. “That’s a public safety problem that we need to address.”