Police photograph and collect evidence from the scene of a car ramming attack in South Vancouver on April 27.Jesse Winter/The Globe and Mail
It was just before 8 p.m. on Saturday, and the crowds at the Lapu-Lapu Day Block Party were dancing and smiling and singing in the sunshine.
“I gotta feeling that tonight’s going to be a good night,” they sang, filling the air with their collective voices, belting out the Black Eyed Peas’ party hit. Filipino-American rapper Apl.de.Ap and singer J. Rey Soul led the song from the stage.
It was a beautiful spring Saturday that felt more like summer, and thousands of people had gathered on the grounds of John Oliver Secondary School in Vancouver for a festival to celebrate the Filipino hero Lapu-Lapu.
It was billed as “a block party for everyone,” and many people from outside the Filipino community had passed through the festival that day, including NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Premier David Eby, who had taken his daughter.
But the crowd singing and dancing at the close of the festival was predominantly Filipino. It seemed like everyone in the city’s Filipino community was there or knew someone who was.
As the concert came to a close, families and festivalgoers strolled away from the grounds, some walking down a street dedicated to food trucks, the only road around the festival site.
It sounded, to Mohamad Sariman, like an explosion – a loud boom he could hear inside his food truck where he and his wife had been passing out the last of their chicken skewers. It was just past 8 p.m., minutes after the concert ended.
“I look outside of my window and I saw a body lying on the ground,” Mr. Sariman recalled later. “I turned around and said, ‘Oh my God.’ I saw the whole thing.”
Mohamad Sariman, a food truck operator at the Filipino festival that was attacked on Saturday night, says he initially thought the incident which left 11 dead was an explosion.
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Carmela Sicat and her daughter, Carla, were working at a baked goods stand nearby when they heard the sound of an engine revving, and a black Audi Q7 sped into the street filled with pedestrians.
“It was like a big boom,” Ms. Sicat said. Followed by what sounded like “a bunch of fireworks.”
On the street, Carayn Nulada pulled her granddaughter and grandson out of the way as the SUV sped past, but the vehicle clipped her daughter’s arm, knocking her onto the ground.
“She got up looking for us because she is scared,” Ms. Nulada said. “I saw people running and my daughter was shaking.”
Ms. Nulada’s brother was taken to hospital with multiple broken bones, but would survive.
From their job at a nearby jersey store, teenagers Jihad Issa and Nic Magtajas heard revving, then watched as an SUV raced down the road, tossing people high in the air. The vehicle got to the end of the street before it stopped, its hood crushed and engine smoking.
“Pure mayhem as soon as it happened,” Mr. Magtajas said. “It was so loud.”
It lasted seconds, at most. Then it was over.
In the aftermath, dozens of victims lay scattered on the ground, some wedged under food trucks. Many were grievously injured, others already gone.
Ambulances sped to the scene, as did every available police officer in the city, whether they’d been on duty or not.
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The ground was littered with debris. There were overturned chairs, a backpack, a BBQ. A single white and purple running shoe. Children screamed and cried.
Those not frozen in shock did what they could to help.
Mr. Sariman and his wife ran into the street calling 911 for the injured, and using sheets from his truck to cover the bodies of the dead. Aditi Narang, who was working at Vegan Fried Chickun, brought water and tried to comfort victims, including a woman whose friend had been killed.
Some did CPR on the critically injured. Around them, people cried “keep going,” and “oh my God” and “Lord have mercy.”
“I need an ambulance,” a man yelled.
Mr. Issa walked out of the store into the carnage and panic, then went back inside. “We couldn’t do anything,” he said.
Mr. Issa’s mother stood nearby in tears. A police officer told her she should get her son into counselling the next day if possible.
Carmela Sicat’s daughter, Carla, also ran toward the scene, and was still shaking and shivering when she spoke to a reporter hours later.
“I’m just really cold,” she said.
The injured were taken to nine different hospitals around the city, where medical staff – many of them Filipino themselves – rushed in to help, whether or not they’d been called.
Eleven people were killed, nine of them female. The youngest victim was a five-year-old girl, the oldest a 65-year-old man. By Monday, seven people remained in critical condition, and three were still listed as serious.
The glossy black Audi Q7 came to rest in the middle of the street, its hood crumpled, engine smoking. When the driver got out of the vehicle and tried to leave, he was held by security and witnesses until police arrived to arrest him.
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The driver has been identified as Kai-Ji Adam Lo, a 30-year-old man who lived with his mother a few minutes’ drive from the scene. He’s charged with eight counts of second-degree murder, and police say more charges are expected.
Police describe Mr. Lo as having mental health issues, and say he had frequent interactions with police, including the day before the attack.
At the scene, Lovepreet Singh watched a group of security guards in neon vests confronting the driver, asking: “Are you drunk? Are you high? Why did you do this?”
In a video provided to The Globe and Mail, Mr. Lo stands with his back against a chain link fence wearing a sweatshirt, his hair slightly tousled. He’s beside a security guard, and surrounded by men holding the crowd back from him.
“Smile!” someone yells angrily, as they record Mr. Lo. Others shout and swear. Mr. Lo looks around, his expression inscrutable. He briefly rubs his forehead, then brushes his hand toward one of the men yelling at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pressing his hand to his forehead again.
With reports from The Canadian Press, Moira Wyton and Mike Hager.