A woman sits and prays near the site where a vehicle drove into crowd at a street festival the night before in Vancouver, on April 27.Rich Lam/The Canadian Press
Vancouver police are rejecting suggestions a weekend outdoor festival should have been more heavily fortified, a measure that critics say might have protected attendees from a vehicle attack that killed 11.
Interim Chief Steve Rai said Sunday that authorities were blindsided by the car ramming at a Filipino street festival the day before, as the attack was unforeseen by the police’s own risk assessment and the event planners’ public-safety protocol.
“There were no known threats to the event or to the Filipino community,” Chief Rai told reporters.
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He added that “it’s a family, children event, and none of the indicators were there to do anything to a higher threat level.”
Shortly after 8 p.m. on Saturday, a man driving a black Audi SUV drove into a large crowd of people attending the Lapu-Lapu festival. Among the 11 killed was at least one child. Movable barriers at the festival were deemed sufficient security before the event, rather than, for example, special police presence or rigid vehicle barricades.
“We don’t want to cage everybody up at every event in the city of Vancouver,” Chief Rai said, as “it hasn’t been warranted here.” But, he added, “this will be a watershed moment for everyone involved.”
Interim Chief Steve Rai said Sunday that authorities were blindsided by the car ramming at the Filipino street festival.Jesse Winter/The Globe and Mail
The deadly event means Vancouver joins the ranks of several global cities that have experienced mass-casualty vehicle attacks in the past decade, including Berlin, Nice, London, Stockholm, New York and New Orleans. In Canada, Toronto was the site of the 2018 van attack that killed 11 people.
One security expert says senior Canadian government officials need to see the Vancouver attack as a proof that such attacks are recurring, and that communities may need funding for increased physical security measures for large crowds.
“These kinds of attacks, they’re not going away – there’s no way to prevent a person from getting in a car and driving it into people,” said Leah West, a security expert and professor at Carleton University.
“I think it would be a good federal plan – or a provincial plan – to have resources for event organizers.”
Some countries outside Canada have already created such funds. Some governments are also issuing public advisories about the threat of vehicle attacks and are urging countermeasures.
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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For example, the British government issues videos highlighting the need for what it calls “hostile vehicle mitigation” (HVM) measures. One such video shows a white van bearing down on unsuspecting people at a street festival, including families with children. Suddenly, large concrete planters and steel bollards materialize to take the brunt of the van’s impact, saving lives.
“Since 2014, vehicles have been used as weapons in over 140 attacks around the world,” says the video from the National Protective Security Authority in Britain. Its messaging is that nine in 10 attack locations did not have significant security barriers in place.
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In the case of Toronto’s 2018 van attack, an Ontario Superior Court judge eventually convicted the driver of 26 counts of murder and attempted murder after he targeted people along a stretch of Yonge Street.
“There was nothing special about the location other than there would be a lot of people and enough room to drive up on the sidewalk where pedestrians would be,” Justice Anne Malloy said in her 2021 sentencing ruling.
Physical security measures were promised at some key Toronto venues in the aftermath of the 2018 attack, though some around Union Station are only due to be completed this year.
In late December, the City of Toronto announced an anti-hate action plan where it said municipal officials will develop guidelines for HVM “interventions on city streets such as street furniture and bollards.”
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But such measures may not be practical for the thousands of sprawling street festivals that take place in large Canadian cities each year. These events can see police, barriers or even large municipal vehicles temporarily block intersections. But there are generally few hard physical security measures.
In Vancouver, Chief Rai told reporters Sunday that said such measures were not deemed necessary for the Lapu-Lapu festival, as the street closure was only on a minor street behind the adjacent high school in an area designated for food trucks.
“We review over 3,200 events every year and assess the risks with city partners. This event was no exception,” he said.
“We determined through consultations with the City of Vancouver and festival organizers that dedicated police officers and heavy vehicle barricades would not be deployed at the festival site.”
With a file from Moira Wyton