“What I can tell you is this appears to be a very troubled man who has a lengthy history of mental health-related incidents which have resulted in more than 60 documented contacts with police throughout Metro Vancouver,” Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer said at a Wednesday press conference.
“He has a prior conviction for assault, a prior conviction for assault causing bodily harm, and at the time of his arrest he was on probation out of White Rock for an assault that occurred in 2023.”
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This is wrong.
Overall violent crime may be decreasing.
Random violent attacks have skyrocketed since covid. At one point in Vancouver (2021), they were estimating 4 attacks per day.
That's what happened today and that's what people are concerned about to the point where people completely avoid parts of DT Vancouver now.
Maybe theres just a shrubbery over-growth problem on the DTES of Vancouver? You know, those guys wielding machetes are just...overly-concerned civic Groundskeepers?
Yes...thats a plausible explanation.
Vancouver simply needs a Groundskeeper licensing Agency.
Problem solved!
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That literally says what I posted, 4 attacks per day in 2021.
I did not say 2024 is the peak, but all years since 2021 are highly elevated compared to pre covid times.
Are you actually making the case that random attacks are not higher in recent years?
It also say the 4 attacks per day number was potentially not accurate.
Quote:
"Due to the number of assaults we investigate, and the way we are required to keep records, we’re unable to provide the total number of stranger assaults that occurred during that period," Addison wrote in an email last year in response to a request for data.
"Many of these cases require significant investigation to determine whether they are, in fact, committed by strangers and whether they are in fact unprovoked."
The report presented at Thursday's Vancouver Police Board meeting indicates the issue is "continuously monitored."
Furthermore, attacks are down to 1.1/day through 2023, which would indicate a decline, right? So what opendoor said is still accurate. It even says in the article you posted that the increase was likely caused by the pandemic, which is fairly consistent with violent crime data across most large cities in North America.
Quote:
"This was further exacerbated by mental health pressures triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes resulting in violent interactions between strangers. The return of pre-pandemic daily routines has now led to more pedestrians and increased guardianship within public spaces."
So it would stand to reason that, as we get further away from the pandemic, these numbers should continue to decline, right?
EDIT: Also, I'm still waiting on this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
Please show me where I defended a political party in either post.
“What I can tell you is this appears to be a very troubled man who has a lengthy history of mental health-related incidents which have resulted in more than 60 documented contacts with police throughout Metro Vancouver,” Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer said at a Wednesday press conference.
“He has a prior conviction for assault, a prior conviction for assault causing bodily harm, and at the time of his arrest he was on probation out of White Rock for an assault that occurred in 2023.”
No one is debating the man has priors. You are claiming the justice system is somehow at fault for this.
If you're making the larger argument that our justice system does a poor job of rehabilitating criminals, I will completely agree with you.
If your argument is that the justice system failed to confine this person for as long as they should have, you need to produce more evidence. Repeat offenders are still eligible for release, probation, etc., once they have served the time assessed to them. Unless you're advocating to keep offenders in jail indefinitely, you have to understand that recidivism is going to occur.
I did not say 2024 is the peak, but all years since 2021 are highly elevated compared to pre covid times.
Are you actually making the case that random attacks are not higher in recent years?
The article doesn't say that at all though:
Quote:
...in the preceding 12 months, there had been 1,555 stranger attacks in the city, or an average of about four per day. That number, police said, was a 35 per cent increase compared to 2019 and indicated an "alarming increase" in these random, violent crimes.
So a 35% increase means that there were about 1,150 of those in 2019. Now here's where they talk about more recently:
Quote:
The report does not include any actual figures. CTV News requested the full analysis from the Vancouver Police Department on Thursday, and in response was provided two statistics: That unprovoked stranger assaults went from an average of 4.5 per day in the first half of 2021 to 1.1 per day in the first half of 2023.
So by the first half of 2023, they were on pace for 400 in a year, which would represent a significant drop compared to 2019. Now it's possible the 2nd half of the year is higher, but it would need to be 5x higher than the 1st half of 2023 to even match 2019's rate. And given how 2021 played out (relatively consistent numbers throughout the year), that seems extremely doubtful.
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It also say the 4 attacks per day number was potentially not accurate.
Furthermore, attacks are down to 1.1/day through 2023, which would indicate a decline, right? So what opendoor said is still accurate. It even says in the article you posted that the increase was likely caused by the pandemic, which is fairly consistent with violent crime data across most large cities in North America.
So it would stand to reason that, as we get further away from the pandemic, these numbers should continue to decline, right?
Opendoor was showing violent crime rates since 2002; so no, not accurate and not even relevant unluss random attack rates mirror those.
I'm sure people worried about random attacks will be glad domestic violence and bar fights are down though.
Hopefully random attacks are declining from covid and continue to, but I don't see how that justifies sweeping it under the rug as a non issue or pretending it was like this 10 years ago.
Everyone in Vancouver knows that's not true.
Furthermore the number of attacks and the criminal history and parole of an attacker are 2 different points of concern.
Even if the number of attacks drops significantly, a repeat offender with 60+ police encounters and multiple assault charges being free to do this will always be a problem.
Quote:
EDIT: Also, I'm still waiting on this.
It's right beside where I said you can keep people in prison forever. Make up silly things, completely avoid the event, show your true motivations.
Never have you shown any concern for victims; always rushing straight to a political angle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
Do you know how long his sentence was and how much time her served? Any inside info on what the terms of his probation were?
Hate to break it to you, but you can't just keep people in prison forever.
Even if the number of attacks drops significantly, a repeat offender with 60+ police encounters and multiple assault charges being free to do this will always be a problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates
It's right beside where I said you can keep people in prison forever. Make up silly things, completely avoid the event, show your true motivations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates
"The chief said the man has previous convictions for assault and assault causing bodily harm and was on probation for a 2023 assault when he attacked the two men Wednesday."
Of Course
Okay, so elaborate on what you're saying above with these posts. If the person has previous convictions but has served their sentence, etc., what should be done with them to mitigate recidivism?
Was the "of course" just to illustrate your lack of surprise that the dude had priors? Not exactly an earth-shattering revelation. Most violent criminals have priors.
Again, in the context of what the criminal code, the Charter, legal precedent, etc., stipulate, how do you think repeat offenders should be handled differently?
Quote:
Never have you shown any concern for victims; always rushing straight to a political angle.
Spare me the faux moral outrage. I'm not the one using a tragedy to push a political narrative.
At least I actually brainstorm ideas for how to improve the justice, not to mention work and volunteer in fields that seek to improve mental health access, which would likely reduce these types of incidents.
What do you do besides piss, moan, and pearl-clutch on the internet?
My elderly mother works on the same block as this Tim Horton's. Her and her colleagues have had to call the local security guard (hired by the Chinatown Business Association to cover businesses in the area due to the increased crime that happens there) multiple times each year when people wander through the front door of their office and linger. They've also constructed a barrier between the front door and them that is higher (like a bar) and a locked entry way into the office space since before they put that up, some people would wander right up to their desks. The security guard was physically beaten a few years ago (was on the news) for asking people to move away from one of the businesses in that area and not loiter. Something most definitely needs to change, IMO. Letting things continue as they have been since COVID is not an acceptable approach for me.
Last edited by activeStick; 09-06-2024 at 10:59 AM.
It really comes down to how expensive and how dystopian people want things to get. If someone has a history of minor offences, should we just lock them up indefinitely? Even violent criminals are going to get out of jail at some point unless we just have indefinite periods of detention. The vast majority of violent offenders don't escalate their crimes to murder, and it's obviously not really possible to predict which ones will do so, so are we OK with just jailing them all indefinitely?
Or should we create a large mental health apparatus that can treat these people and basically commit them to that? We've had that in the past, but it was gutted through deinstitutionalization in the 1990s and 2000s to save money.
Involuntarily committing people is also a form of imprisonment. The main difference between that and jail, is that in jail the health services are voluntary. As it is, the ability of the government to hold someone, without conviction, for mental health reasons far exceeds that same power for reasons of criminal prosecution.
As for dystopianism, it's getting pretty dystopian out there as it is. Downtown is full of thousands of people dying and doing drugs right in the open and in front of small businesses. Families, with two income earners, can't afford rent. Ownership is being consumed by both the government and large corporations.
I don't know much about the guy, but reading that article, his thoughts on nuclear sound pretty on point to me.
I mean, banning it was kind of stupid, but not for the reasons he's talking about. More because it's not really viable in BC for a host of reasons, and would never make financial sense. A good chunk of the province is seismically unstable, and BC already has significant baseload capacity with hydro. So adding expensive nuclear power to also act as a baseload doesn't do a whole lot other than raise the cost of power.
Whereas, because hydro output can be modulated almost instantaneously, it's well-suited to overcome the downsides of renewable intermittent power sources like wind. If you have significant renewable capacity generating for part of the day/week/month, then you raise the dams and rely less on hydro for those periods. Then when renewables aren't producing, you rely more on hydro.
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Involuntarily committing people is also a form of imprisonment. The main difference between that and jail, is that in jail the health services are voluntary. As it is, the ability of the government to hold someone, without conviction, for mental health reasons far exceeds that same power for reasons of criminal prosecution.
Yeah, that's my point. Do we want to get in a situation where we're just rounding up drug users and committing them? Beyond the ethical issues with that, I think people are kidding themselves if they think that's going to solve the problem.
Quote:
As for dystopianism, it's getting pretty dystopian out there as it is. Downtown is full of thousands of people dying and doing drugs right in the open and in front of small businesses. Families, with two income earners, can't afford rent. Ownership is being consumed by both the government and large corporations.
Whatever is going on needs to change.
All those things are more or less caused by the increased financialization of housing, and no one seems to be actually proposing anything that will fix that. Even the people who do identify the issue don't seem to have any better answers than "build, build, build" or basically stopping immigration. But that hasn't made a difference in Vancouver at all.
Greater Vancouver's current population growth is around its lowest in history, increasing by about 280K in the last decade. Given the average household size, you'd need about 110-130K new units in that period to absorb that population growth. Well in the last 10 years Greater Vancouver has built over 250K new units, 2-2.5x the number needed. But have prices gone down in that time? Of course not, because housing is increasingly being treated as an investment where people wanting to live in a place have to compete with people wanting to make money off of it.
Yeah, that's my point. Do we want to get in a situation where we're just rounding up drug users and committing them? Beyond the ethical issues with that, I think people are kidding themselves if they think that's going to solve the problem.
All those things are more or less caused by the increased financialization of housing, and no one seems to be actually proposing anything that will fix that. Even the people who do identify the issue don't seem to have any better answers than "build, build, build" or basically stopping immigration. But that hasn't made a difference in Vancouver at all.
Greater Vancouver's current population growth is around its lowest in history, increasing by about 280K in the last decade. Given the average household size, you'd need about 110-130K new units in that period to absorb that population growth. Well in the last 10 years Greater Vancouver has built over 250K new units, 2-2.5x the number needed. But have prices gone down in that time? Of course not, because housing is increasingly being treated as an investment where people wanting to live in a place have to compete with people wanting to make money off of it.
Vancouver has never allowed mass scale building of higher density housing. AKA the missing middle. They've heavily restricted building and only allowed high end condos to slowly leak out, and always at a rate far below demand.
The GVRD added about 85,000 residents into an already overpopulated city. Maybe, percentagewise that's smaller than previous years, but in absolute terms it's higher.
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B.C. Stats hasn’t done a press release about Metro reaching three million — the official release won’t be until July 1. But if you look at the “population app” on the B.C. Stats website, it projects it will be 3,021,372 on July 1. This is up from 2.935 million on July 1, 2023.
Metro hit one million residents in 1970 and two million in 1999. It took another 25 years to reach three million. B.C. Stats projects Metro will hit four million in 2041, which is in 17 years.
You can't possibly believe that there isn't a shortage of housing units?
Quote:
About 60% of the 3.5 million housing unit gap is in Ontario and British Columbia. This is because housing supply hasn’t kept up with demand over the past 20 years in some of the largest urban centres.
Housing sucks here and is a major catalyst to a lot of these other social issues. There isn't even affordable middle class housing. I joked with a buddy the other day. I would have to put down $1.1M to match his mortgage from 15-16 years ago. Insanity. He put $5K down.
A buddy a work is down on the south end of Knight street. In the three houses around him, his and the two on either side there are 17 people living in those three houses. Add in 13 cars to that. Just ugly and awful. How is that desirable?
The issues in Vancouver aren't unique to Vancouver either. They're issues in most major cities and the common thread is housing.
Obviously zoning and NIMBYism is part of the problem, but the major issue has been letting the free market run wild in the housing sector.
If you're voting BCC, you'll have to explain how a party that's being led by the more right-leaning members of the former BC Liberals, the same party that basically created this mess, is going to fix the issue. More deregulation, privatization, etc., isn't going to fix this issue.
Housing affordability is markedly worse in Canada than in the U.S., and that isn’t because we take a more free market approach to housing.
Maybe on an overall basis, but not when comparing cities of similar size and geographical location. Seattle and Portland both have higher housing costs than Victoria and Vancouver.
