Vancouver riot investigation results

[germany00]

A few days after the riot that engulfed downtown Vancouver following Game 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, the province, the city and the Vancouver Police Board commissioned an independent review of the event.

The conclusions and recommendations from that review, co-chaired by Douglas J. Keefe, QC and John Furlong, were released Thursday in a 396-page report. Keefe and Furlong offered two major problems from that day -- there were too many people and they were too drunk -- while offering 53 recommendations for future preparation and prevention with similar events.

According to the report, there were 155,000 people in downtown Vancouver when the Boston Bruins defeated the Canucks in Game 7. There were 446 police officers on duty in the area early in the day, and that number swelled to 928 by the end of the night -- more than four times the number on duty when there was a riot during the 1994 Stanley Cup Final and two-and-a-half times the number for the gold-medal game at Rogers Arena during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Keefe said part of the problem was deployment of the police officers was slow in the afternoon and the transition to tactical gear took as long as 40 minutes for some units after the order to do was given. He also noted, howver, that a smoother deployment would not have prevented a riot from happening.

Alcohol sales were up 68 percent that day from the previous June 15th, according to Keefe, and Furlong pointed out that people using the public transportation to get downtown were also carrying alcohol with them.

Furlong said everyone involved, from the Vancouver Canucks and the National Hockey League to volunteers, need to be part of the solution.

 

[cream_puffed]

That was a crazy f*ckin day.