The Vancouver Riots: A Mea Culpa

The world's full of idiots, sports fan or not. Vancouver has always had more than its fair share; the riot merely confirms that city's demographic remains relatively unchanged.

Did you ever wonder about history?

Who were the people filling the village square for public floggings, or hangings, or beheadings?

You saw them in Vancouver.

I dont think an apology is necessary, unless you had blamed the riots on Dubya.

Thin blue line indeed. My wife and I often discuss how quickly things break down when people all want access to limited resources.

Can be as simple a situation as someone cutting in line. Or the eventual New Years Eve fight over cabs in the downtown area. Or a fight over using the port-a-pottie at any Pavilion Folkfest. Or any situation where you get 100,000+ people in a small area.

In my experience, there are very few people who really believe in principles of equality, and treating others fairly. Libs, from my experience, are the first to throw it all out the window once the going gets tough.

In those situations, cops are worth their weight in gold.

Hashtag of the entitlement generation: #riotmob. I am not looking forward to the day when they are told that they are no longer entitled to their entitlements. Greece is just a preview.

The Canucks choked in game 7 ... what a surprise.

Before the end of the series I jokingly was saying that Van City was going to burn win or lose.

I knew for sure it was going to burn after that long sustained creepy boo of Gary Bettman. The boo wasn't the usual lighthearted boo of a league's commish during award presentation. It was the first time I actually felt sorry for the a$$clown Bettman.

As someone that lived in Vancouver in 1994, I remember how the Police were crucified for hitting a rioter in the head with a beanbag round. I can't help but wonder if this either consciously or subconsciously impacted the slow and weak police response this time.

I suspect if the police had quelled the riot sooner with more force they would have been crucified by the same people that are complaining about the lack of policing.

Too many dreamers scared to face the dark side of reality.

Get over it, and yourself. A mob of (mostly) young men -- who, by the way, are (mostly) otherwise "normal law-abiding Vancouverites" -- got drunk, had their egos bruised when their team lost a game that they invested a lot of their identity in, and went and smashed up a bunch of stuff (store windows, cars, faces) to make themselves feel better.

There's no need for "Vancouver" to defend or redeem itself. This isn't a disgrace to the city; this is par for the course when (mostly) young men everywhere gather over beer and sports, the latter having long-served as a symbolic and more civilized channel for testosterone-driven conflict and aggression.

Four woe-is-me posts in two days is getting to be overkill. A suggestion: go back to what you're good at -- i.e., complaining about lefties, environmentalists, teachers, teachers' unions, liberals, Liberals, the NDP, the federal public service, your provincial/territorial public service, your municipal/regional public service, Big Government, George Soros, Al Gore, Obama, Obama, Obama, OBAMA! Etc.

On the other hand, this might be the first time that an SDA blogger has ever admitted being wrong and apologized for a previous post, so that's a positive, I guess.

Davenport,

So how do you explain the lack of riots in Miami after the Heat lost with a can't miss team.

You are correct about some of the ingredients, but there are some others.

Too many people, too few police....acceptance of yob culture...the uniform apparently being baggy shorts, a baseball cap and a 'nucks jersey.

"men go crazy in congregations"

Prosecute those you can find, ruin a few lives by giving them a record and then publicize what happens to them, difficulty finding a job, not being able to cross the border, finding themselves on a no fly list.

Garnish future wages as punishment.

This was a big laugh for too many people, like the G20 riots. A videogame event to be "experienced" without consequence.

Someone here is offering free espresso mocha lattes, equally frothed, served on an environmentally friendly doily, made from the fairest or fair trade coffee beans, a free copy of the editorial page of the local leftist rag, and served by a self-identifid gender-neutral comrade.

To you I say, stop doing that. The trolls are defecating everywhere in their insatiable desire for free stuff.

And no one seems to think that it is up to YOU to defend your lives and your property. The cops cannot and are constrained with absurd rules.

Oh wait, they are trying to take your guns away......

Roy Green is full of sh**! Stand beside the police? They don't want or trust you.It is the police who have fostered the "them versus us" mentality,and YOU are "THEM"!

You have NO authority to act as a cop,and don't bother to get into a citizen's "right" to arrest.It's a nebulous right,and when the case gets into Court,you are going to need an expensive lawyer to keep you from going to jail or getting your ass sued of.

Punch one of those f'ing thugs in the head,and find out his Dad is an over protective parent who intends to sue you into bankruptcy for hurting his little boy.

The only guy on video who stood up to the thugs got his head stomped. If you assist the police and get yours, don't expect any compensation or help from the police Union. You're on your own.

The governments of all Provinces and the Feds,have propagandized us with,"don't take the law into your own hands,call the POLICE",and that idea has taken root very firmly. Just call 9-11,and everything will be okay!

About the only thing a citizen could do and should have done, is get the hell out of the area A.S.A.P., and let the cops see who's doing what,so they can effect an arrest.

Roy Green and so many internet heroes have the idea that "right" will always win in the end,it does only on rare occasions. Lawyers and activist Judges/Prosecutors have made damned sure of that.

He who has the best lawyer and is the best actor in Court,wins, you lose. My advice to any citizen in the Vancouver riot would have been the same as Don Cherry's advice to NHL defenceman, "get out of the way and let the goalie/cop do his job".

Those who stand and watch are not guilty.
If they attempted to 'help' the police, they sure as hell would have been arrested for obstructing police officers or assault or some other charges.
That 'Those who stand and watch are guilty' is just one radio host's opinion, but police has stated many times to the media that they don't want any help, that civilian's role is to step back and let professionals do the job, etc. etc.
They've been very specific in delivering that message to Lawrence Manzer and Ian Thompson.

"So how do you explain the lack of riots in Miami after the Heat lost with a can't miss team."

Luck, chance, serendipity, a complex confluence of determining factors beyond comprehension and willful control. As you like.

Obviously it's not deterministic -- not every sporting event ends in a melee. That said, I've no doubt that given even a slightly different set of circumstances, Miami Heat fans would riot. The point is, everyone's capable.

I tend to agree with Davenport, but my point is why would you attach the label, "sports fans" to a group of people and then imply that this means they are all saints. It's ridiculous.

Try it with another arbitrarily chosen label: 'Oh, those people are coffee drinkers and would never do such a thing. The rioters must not have been coffee drinkers.' Sounds really dumb, doesn't it?

Question, did the "Miami Heat" or the Mayor of Miami encourage tens of thousands of fans to clog the streets and watch the finals on a big screen TV, as Vancouver's media and Mayor did?

Or were they more sensible and just let folks watch the game at home or in a sports bar?

Gregor Robertson is quite the utopian,probably envisioned thousands of people holding a love-in after the Canucks beat those awful Bruins.

This event was fomented by incompetent politicians and media whores who didn't heed the warnings of skeptics who warned that a riot would be likely if Vancouver either won or lost game seven.

Seeing as a tie wasn't going to happen,the eventual outcome was no surprise at all,except to the people who counted most,the cops and the Mayor.

No apology necessary Robert. Civilization's veneer is very thin and the efforts of some to destroy or convert our society to some utopia will make these events more common.

Eagle, well said @ 9:20.

dmorris, food for thought.

Too many people are over-complicating this, and analyzing it to death. This doesn't happen in other cities because other cities have other outlets for their youthful energy.

People mention Boston, Miami, and others, and wonder why they don't have riots. Well, they have other things to think about. I was in Boston last summer, and watched a parade of young Navy recruits, marching along the historic route of the old downtown area. It was quite moving. Hockey tends to take a back seat when there are assaults on your very social structure.

I doubt there's another city in the world where there are fewer meaningful activities available to young men. Beside hockey, what else do they have to be proud of? The largest industry is welfare, and the second largest is the marijuana industry. All the successful people are brown immigrants. Add to all these factors, the weather is non-threatening, and you have angry, bored, emasculated, young men. The city is in a state of near-riot at any given time.

It doesn't help that the lamestream media in Vancouver is haming up the "non-fan", small group of anarchist terrorist meme. It's all BS. On facebook there's posting after posting of some a-hole wearing a canucks jersey trashing cars and terrorizing Vancouver. I can't believe anyone will buy what the Mayor and Premier are selling.

As for the police. I just want to say I don't blame them for STARTING the riot but I certainly blame them for not responding to the situation quickly.

Just watching morning news on Sun TV. Vancouver not even mentioned, though they were going to go to more fall out from "Riot City" . . . :(

During the Flames' 2004 playoff run, I was a very active participant in the festivities. I lived just off 17th Ave ("the Red Mile"), I attended most of the home games, and while the team played away, I watched the games from one of the local bars near the Saddledome.

The Red Mile grew organically at the end of the first round of playoffs and quickly grew to a large, ad hoc street festival lasting almost two months. By the time the Flames reached the Stanley Cup finals, the whole affair had grown considerably.

It was at this point I started noticing some more undesirable elements in the crowd. Some young guys would trash a garbage can or some on-street corporate displays. Another young idiot brought a carton of eggs and started tossing them in the crowd. Small things, but thuggish nonetheless.

In every instance I saw these actions, however, the people standing around the wanna-be anarchists would yell at them, boo at them, let it be known that we wanted a fun, energetic, but ultimately peaceful demonstration. The crowd collectively wouldn't tolerate the little crap that these guys were doing, because everyone seemed to realize that once douchebaggery begins, the fun ends.

So Roy is right -- the crowd in Vancouver had the first opportunity to put a stop to the small actions before the bigger, more distructive forces could take hold.

It's not about standing by the police; it's about taking control of your own community without having to rely on local authorities.

Wednesday night we saw just how thin the veneer of civilization is. When significant parts of our society do not accept the standards of civility by which most of us live our lives, we have to be prepared to break heads. Or tolerate what happened in Vancouver.

No place in Canada is more tolerant than Vancouver where people sleep in the streets, use doorways as toilets and shoot-up in tax-funded needle dens. Well, Van, howz that workin' for ya? The tolerance in which your politicians take so much pride sends a message to the criminal element that yours is a city that will put up with just about anything. So the criminals feel they have free rein to trash and burn. Sadly Vancouver is not the only Canadian city to embrace such attitudes.

Imagine the shock the rioters would have felt if Vancouver police had stepped in quickly to inflict some street justice on those a-holes in the form of physical pain administered with riot batons. Sure they would have howled about police brutality and their lefty sympathizers would have wrung their hands as they always do. But this type of police action sends a much-needed message: behave yourself in our town or else.

It is not nice blaming people who stood by and watched for as one who has seen many a riot on TV - even the most passive get energized and do stupid and dangerous = harmful stuff. See UK and USA.

But given that many of the rioters may have been propelled by CBC and certainly by the Black hooded agitators from the Olympics and the G8/G20 -it is time to deal with them as "Urban Terrorists"

The various human rights commissions and apparatchiks are not going to intervene and declare the right to safety and security as sacrosanct and then act upon it.

They are safely housed in the best neighborhoods of the nation and only pronounce their desire for social equality and engineering upon the under class.

You also have to wonder if things wouldn't have turned out so crazy in Vancouver if the guys in the crowd focused their energy on something more titilating.

Davenport said: "this is par for the course when (mostly) young men everywhere gather over beer and sports..."

Well yes dear, it is now. But some of us are old enough to remember when it was -not- the usual thing, and those same young men would have been mortified to be associated with it.

Not a very long time ago either, maybe late '70s, early '80s. You know, the time of ancient history before you were born.

Are you even old enough to remember when the BlueJays won their first championship? Two million drunk people went downtown and didn't break anything.

Listen this wasn't some organized anarchist/terrorist riot. It was canuck fans going nuts. Don't believe the BS spewed by the premier or the mayor. Look at the pictures. These are not G8/G20 terrorists.

"Two million drunk people went downtown and didn't break anything."

Those other people were drunk too?? Well, now I feel better about my own embarrassing condition at the time.
Seriously, it must have been an earlier time - something sure has changed.

I think you have finally settled on the substantive issue here. We continue to be ruled by the Romantic view of man promoted by Rousseau. This just showed how wrong that is. As a society we are ever so close to descending into the law of the jungle. We can be nice savages –but we can also be nasty savages. The tragedy is because of the romantic paradigm, we do not allow the organizations we have contracted to maintain order to actually do their job. The thin blue line is handcuffed by our political correctness. We are more comfortable with them out of sight and out of mind than out in public maintaining the right.
The G8 riot was nothing more than another expression of this. If we all agree that the Vancouver riot was unacceptable, what is the difference between it and the G8 riot? How and where do you draw the line?

dmorris ... very good comment. There are common irrational expectations toward the role of police in the society.

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Riots, flash mobs is a growing phenomenon. The ongoing collapse of authority partially stimulated and often aided by (decentralized) technology. Without assigning any values, I think the need for rage spreads globally.
As for Vancouver there were not just drunken sports fans engaging in a destructive tribal celebration as used to be with old fashion soccer hooligans. There was a need for destruction itself.
There are tons of books and articles about '60s generation rebelling against morals, "family values" etc. of their parents. In the last two decades parents strapped children to booster chairs, bicycle helmets and 24hour adult supervision. They have taken action of creating total physical, emotional and mental safety net. The book on the reaction is yet to be written.

btw.... in the '50 when people drove drunken and smoke cigarettes, those were the peaceful times.

BTW if you want to see all the non-canuck fans in action have a look here:
http://www.forumvancouver.com/threads/vancouver-riot-downtown-after-canucks-lose-stanley-cup-2011.1305/#post-6151

Decide for yourself.

dmorris is right

you either run for cover

or prepare to kill someone if you have to (to defend yourself) and accept that there's a good chance you spend a decade in jail.

Roy G has no clue about these things.

I've gotten my hands dirty on enough occasions to say that: if you don't know what you're talking about, shut the heck-up and run and hide.

I long ago decided that I will not do the RIGHT thing to ensure that I'm around for my daughter's and my wife. Doing the RIGHT thing will inevitably have you end-up in jail. This ain't the movies, it's a fight for your life when you get mixed-up in crime.

the nobles: "If we all agree that the Vancouver riot was unacceptable, what is the difference between it and the G8 riot?"

The G20 riot was an organized offensive by a hundred or so politically motivated union thugs, under cover of an ostensibly "peaceful" union parade, who were ALLOWED to riot despite being outnumbered 20-1 by the largest, heaviest armed, most expensive police presence in Canadian history. Plus, total damage was one cop car and a bunch of windows. Not really much of a riot, more of a carefully orchestrated media event.

The Vancouver riot was clearly bad crowd control. Who puts up a Jumbotron downtown and doesn't think there's going to be trouble? Also the crowd of punks had -no- fear of retribution, and they still don't. They're posting their own pictures on facebook, and videos of themselves on you-tube. Doesn't get much more fearless than that. We shall see if their confidence is justified or not.

Sports are a substitute for and vicarious enjoyment of naked violence. Sports were historically ALWAYS associated with military activities. Military academies require athletic participation.

Sports have become a civilized outlet for repressed aggression. And while I say that with some appreciation, I never forget the essential nature of men as violent animals with a penchant for destruction.

Two points:
1. Hockey fans come in all shapes and sizes. There are lots of louts in most hockey towns (except maybe in Ottawa where the louts can't even get to the arena).

2. Riots like this can only happen when there is a culture of disrespect for the private property of others. So you'd expect to see this more in leftist strongholds like Vancouver and Montreal, where people have the attitude that big corporations are evil and that if you see a parked car that you have every right to trash it. A lot of these people are the same types of people that trashed Toronto during the G20. To participate in a riot you need to be subscribed to the victimhood mentality.

Indiana Homez ...

In times of riots one better not live downtown and drive anything that is not able to run over curbs.

coach at June 17, 2011 11:00 AM: "This doesn't happen in other cities because other cities have other outlets for their youthful energy. ... I doubt there's another city in the world where there are fewer meaningful activities available to young men"

Counter example: Chicago Bulls fans rioted when the Bulls WON the NBA championship in 1992.

Chicago is a big city with lots of things to do.

Contrast the Chicago behavior with that in another big NBA championship city.

The Dippers have their big gathering in Vancouver this weekend, they'll surely be offering up solutions to prevent such thuggery.

Any bets they'll be calling for more hugs for thugs?

"Sports have become a civilized outlet for repressed aggression" POWinCA at 12:19 PM.

Interesting point, even if I partially disagree. I think sports have also become an outlet for many who have nothing else to do in their spare time.

In my day we had hobbies which kept our minds thinking and gave us a sense of satisfaction. Sure, we had sports too (tennis in my case was a big one) but sport was not the be all and end all.

I find that youngsters today have grown up on too much TV and video games and Facebook, and are simply incapable of entertaining themselves for more than 10 minutes. Youngsters today are also very immature for their age, and many are spoilt rotten.

One can only laugh at Vancouver's NDP mayor complaining about the thugs. The philosophies that he subscribes to are part of the reason such thugs exist at all, and part of the reason they can get away with the sort of thing we saw this week.

@Davenport - good to see you back doing what you're good at, i.e. trolling, hanging out where you're not welcome, needling your moral and intellectual betters, acting like an 11-year old.

"Riots like this can only happen when there is a culture of disrespect for the private property of others. So you'd expect to see this more in leftist strongholds like Vancouver..." scf.

Another very valid point.

davenport - could you explain why smashing the property of other people, burning cars, looting from stores...makes these thugs 'feel better'?

Are you suggesting that we say 'there, there'..now do you feel better, my precious baby'?

What about the people whose stores were smashed? Whose property was stolen? [And don't try 'the insurance will pay for it scam]. What about the individuals beaten up by the thugs when they tried to stop them from smashing windows? Do they feel better?

Rex Murphy has a nice column in the NP

http://www.nationalpost.com/

Title: Punish those who tore the heart out of Vancouver.

That's right; punish them. Murphy writes:
"Those vandals, punks, thugs who smacked people around, fought with and sought to injure police, set fire to cars, trashed and looted at will in Vancouver Wednesday night — all are a pathetic pack of cowardly destructive losers"

He's right; they are a pathetic pack of cowardly destructive losers.

And he writes: "There aren’t any excuses for what they did. None. None. At. All. If these whiny, pampered, useless sacks of skin even try to claim it was because their team lost, then they haven’t got the intelligence of a ball of mud. Fools don’t need a motive to be fools, and destructive and threatening fools, such as those who rioted Wednesday night in Vancouver are no exception to this rule. This kind of fool will riot when “his” team wins as easily as when it loses, the game was just a convenient trigger."

Got that, Davenport? There is NO EXCUSE.

Oh, one of the leftist commenters on this article claimed that it was due to 'the underling causes of societal decay'. Whatever that means. Heh.

Nope. It was pure irresponsible, arrogant thuggish behaviour. Maybe you think that it's OK to smash, destroy and steal; that it's OK to beat up people, burn cars, and loot. And that it's simply due to their youth and maleness. So it's practically 'genetic', eh?

If that were the case, and this thuggish rioting was a normative act - then, all such sport events would be banned, everywhere, in all cities and towns.

It isn't 'par for the course'.

On the upside.. womens' studies, sociology and psychology departments will have one more thing to blame on evil patriarchical capitalism next semester.

Mandatory sensitivity training for hockey fans is the obvious solution.

Hmm, the underlying causes of social decay - like the moral relativism and crippled justice system of leftists.

So in a way the stupid parroting turd is right but for the wrong reasons...

Michael H. Anderson @ 1:03, exactly.

ET, I think the leftist commentator was right in a sense when he or she said 'the underling causes of societal decay'. What they forgot to add was that the leftist idea of remaking man has led to and is a part of what is happening now.

Robert, don't beat yourself up about the failings of others, that's the road to never-ending torment known as liberalism.

I lived n Vancouver about 10 years, bascially the 1990s. I left. I loved being in Vancouver but it was not for me in the long run. These riots certainly do not typify Vancouver. It is a sleepy place all in all. But as anywhere, there is a large enough segment of the population that will do aggressive things when protected by the anonimity of a large crowd and abetted by the same reaction of others. Petty acts escalate all too easily into significant vandalism and even violence. I really cannot say this is unique to Vancouver in quality or quantity, or to fans of the sport of hockey. How many times have we seen something like this in history, across different societies, cultures and religions. What is unique, perhaps, is that the opportunity came about in the way it did. Perhaps there are a few more catalysts in Vancouver than elsewhere. I recall seeing a younf woman sitting on Granville begging with a sign that read, give me som e money or I will steal. Not very bright at marketing, but indicative of a subterranean class that comes to the fore on occasion. Municipal officials should have anticipated that, but I hesitate to criticize people for naively having faith in people. One thing I do hope is that Vancouver drops its off-putting we-are-the-best-place-on-earth attitude. It is a nice place in many respects. I prefer other places I have lived.

There IS a solution to mindless mob violence; it's to change the Defence of Property provisions of the Criminal Code to allow for lethal force to be used to defend private property. This used to be the case in Canada and before that, England (Bill of Rights), but Liberal governments and functionaries have whittled it away to nothing. Korean store owners during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles defended their shops with assault rifles and shotguns and saved their businesses.

A few shotguns outside the Bay would have saved it, as would armed guards with Criminal Code guarantees, at other businesses. This is the only thing that will turn off the mob mentality: private individuals with guns.

murry, yes, this sort of thing has happened in the past, but generally when the different levels of authority broke down through some revolutionary or rebellious political activity or natural disasters such as Katrina immobilized the thin blue lines.

Now it happens with the thin blue line being ordered to basically stand and watch and the lawyers lining to up to rake in some cash.

Frank, exactly!

Maybe it's not all that surprising - after all, I often heard this song on the PA system at hockey games.

Raise A Little Hell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBRrCRfsf5c