Quote:
Originally Posted by jhausner
Blaming people from 1 city is just ignorant. There were thousands of people from Surrey in central Surrey who after game 7 just left and went home. I didn't hear any riots in Surrey or Delta or anywhere else around the lower mainland.
The truth is so far the people IDed, arrested, and/or charged have come from all over the lower mainland. There have been some from Vancouver, Port Moody, Coquitlam, Burnaby, etc. And as someone pointed out above, 3/4 of the population of Metro Vancouver lives outside Vancouver so you're just stating the obvious that probably 3/4 of the crowd were from outside Vancouver.
Still blaming other cities is not only ignorant but way off base. If people in Vancouver want to blame anyone it should be your Mayor. It could also possibly be the Police chief but given the mayor of Vancouver, I'd put some money down that budget approval or lack-thereof probably tied the hands of the VPD chief. The fact they had to call in police from other cities such as Surrey, Delta, Burnaby, and Abbotsford, tells me the city of Vancouver didn't give them enough money or resources.
The VPD has over 1300 officers. It certainly didn't look like there were anywhere near that number downtown at any point even well into the riot, even AFTER police from other cities showed up to help. I'd be surprised if the VPD had more than 300 officers on the street downtown even though some numbers have the count at around 700 (I think that way too high).
So you should blame your own city just as much as the idiots who caused trouble, but certainly not Surrey or the many citizens from Surrey who went and helped clean up.
And I hope people I know stop talking about how the Olympics went so well (especially Mayor Gregor!). That's because 1) the RCMP were in charge with a near unlimitted budget and 2) there were 6,000 officers and 4,500 military on the streets.
A whole different ball game.
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I don't think the evidence is conclusive for your hypothesis.
Just because the burbs were tame after the game doesn't mean the burbs are not where the trouble makers are from. It could just as easily, and more likely, mean that people "don't shit in their homes" and congregated downtown to shit in someone else's.
I came into downtown for the game, and transit and the roads were crazy.
It took 35 minutes to make the 10 minute trip from Broadway to Granville on Skytrain. Every train was arriving 100% full at Granville station and completely unloading, this caused a ripple effect down the line and the trains were moving about a train length every minute, then resting for a minute. That didn't happen to me during the Olympics.
The roads were just as crazy. Hwy 91 was backed up to past 64th. The bus I was on on Scott Road took 30 minutes to travel from 84th to 96th because of traffic (I have NEVER seen it that bad northbound in the PM). The counterflow came off the tunnel early, and when my girlfriend went through it during the first intermission it was backed up to past the Delta works yard. That late people were still flooding into downtown. She rode Canada Line during the Second period and saw a group of kids from the Island (they asked her for directions) that were already hammered and drinking on the train that and the score at that time gave her second thoughts about joining me at a friends place and she thought of turning around and going home.
It just goes to show that downtown was full of people coming in from outside the city. Be it Surrey, Maple Ridge, the interior or the Island, most of these locations are suburban or rural, and the Downtown core was full of them.
While many (even most) of the people from the burbs didn't directly participate in the riot, their presence and refusal to leave after the game sure didn't help. I find it a bit hard to reason that if they were not there, there still would have been a riot.