Vancouver is a Dangerous Place

why would anyone visit here as a tourist? it’s unsafe to be here and our leaders don’t care and our judicial system is a joke

Updated repost from last week because this issue remains front and centre.

VPD reports a rate of two stranger attacks per day. At least weekly, Vancouver local news reports violent crimes perpetrated by offenders that have been released. The VPD express concerns and Mayor Sims reports dissatisfaction with the crisis in our city.

Today the VPD posted the following on Xwitter.

Tyler Gordon Strathdee, 36, was subject of a public warning by Vancouver Police in December 2024, when he obtained statutory release and began residing a halfway house in Vancouver. At the time, Vancouver Police believed Strathdee posed a significant risk of harm to the community and was a high risk to commit further physical and sexual violence. — VPD

---

Blair Donnelly appeared in a Vancouver provincial court to plead not guilty of stabbing three people in Chinatown 33 days before Peterhans Nungu assaulted a peace officer in a domestic violence incident and then tried to kill a Toronto tourist on the Vancouver Sea Wall whilst out on bail from his DV arrest.

Donnelly stabbed his daughter to death in 2006, and was found not criminally responsible. Despite being considered high risk per an April 2023 B.C Review Board report, Donnelly was allowed out on unescorted passes from the Vancouver forensic facility, and that’s when he stabbed three people in Chinatown—on September 2023.

The province contracted Bob Rich to review the Donnelly case. You can find a summary of his recommendations here.

Forty-five days after Donnelly appeared in court to plead not guilty for stabbing three people in Chinatown whilst out on a pass from the Vancouver forensic unit, Kai-Ji Adam Lo drove his SUV car into a crowd at the Lapu Lapu Filipino street festival, killing 11 people, including a 5 year old and her parents.

The provincial government has indicated that Lo was a psychiatric outpatient—under the care of a “mental health team”—having been previously admitted for severe psychiatric distress. Lo’s brother was murdered a year ago, and his mother tried to kill herself 6 months ago. The death of Alexander Lo left his mother devastated and unable to work. The family had to crowd fund to pay for Alexander’s funeral. The Lo family contacted the inpatient unit to report their concerns about Kai-Ji Adam’s devolution into paranoid delusion. It’s unknown what response or support the Lo family received from the “mental health team” in response to their concerns.

189 days before Donnelly appeared in court to plead not guilty of stabbing three people whilst out on a pass from a Vancouver forensic facility, Brendan Colin McBride cut off a man’s hand and murdered homeless elderly man. McBride was on probation at the time of the attack and had a lengthy history with the VPD, (with more that 60 contacts with police) described by VPD Chief Jamie Palmer as “a very troubled man.”

“Chief Palmer also bristled at the leniency afforded Mr. McBride by the criminal justice system, pointing out Mr. McBride’s probation orders were “quite light” without offering specifics and questioned why he had “some serious charges” stayed against him. Chief Palmer also alleged the suspect had a history of assaulting police officers and health care workers.” — Mike Hager and Andrea Woo, Globe and Mail, September 5, 2024

Reader, why?

Why did the system fail these very sick men?

Why doesn’t the system keep us, the public, safe?

Why doesn’t the system support families of dangerously sick men?

Reader, we hear all about feeling unsafe and how words are violence and how silence is violence blah blah blah. What about actual physical violence, reader? What about physical safety, reader?

Why did those three people have to get stabbed in Chinatown in September of 2023? Why did the unnamed man have to endure having his hand cut off and other terrible injuries a year later? Why did Francis David Laporte have to die in September 2024? Why did Stephanie from Toronto have to suffer a violent attack whilst visiting the Sea Wall on vacation 2 weeks ago? Why did 11 people have to die last Saturday evening? Why do we now have to fear for our safety when attending public events and street festivals of simply being outside in downtown Vancouver?

Reader, why do we pay taxes to fund the legal system and mental health services when these systems repeatedly fail to serve and protect us?

How did four dangerously violent men come to be unleashed onto the public by “experts” or professionals? “Individual freedom” prevents our judicial system from incarcerating recidivist violent men and keeping them there. It prevents them from mandating involuntarily psychiatric treatment for dangerously ill patients. It prevents them from mandating institutional care for the patients with refractory conditions.

Why? How can a person suffering from raging rabid psychosis ever taste freedom? How can an individual who lacks the capacity for self control ever experience “individual freedom”?

They cannot. It’s a farce to say they can do, reader.

The mental health care system failed to provide care for Peterhans Nungu. It failed to provide care for Kai-Ji Adam Lo. It failed to provide care for Blair Donnelly. It failed to provide care for Brendan McBride. In these failures, the system failed the victims of their violent attacks. It failed all who witnessed the violent attacks. It failed first responders. It failed the families of these very sick men. It failed everyone. There’s no freedom in the policy direction we’re now suffering.

The mental health system and the judiciary thinks that Peterhans Nungu’s disabled mother should babysit her grown son who has history violence due to a psychiatric condition. That seems like a cruel punishment for Mrs Nungu, reader, to make her responsible for her son’s psychiatric distress and stabilisation, doesn’t it? They think a family-focused residential community should accept having a violent unstable man live amongst them. “House arrest”, they call it.

“He’s okay when stabilized on medication,” I’m told about Peterhans.

Okay, why did he stop taking his medication?

Who’s going to supervise him taking his medication? What happens if he stops taking his medication when under “house arrest” with his mother? Did anyone ask Mrs. Nungu’s care workers what they think about being in the presence of a man so dangerous he can’t return home and must be under house arrest? No one asked my co-operative community what we thought about that situation.

Reader, it’s not okay to refuse to house and treat the dangerously mentally ill rigorously and prudently and safely — ie institutionally.

Reader, institutional psychiatric care for the dangerous and not criminally responsible is not mean, it’s not undignified, it’s not a human rights violation.

Reader, lengthy incarceration for the repeatedly dangerous and criminally responsible is not mean, it’s not undignified, it’s not a human rights violation.

Reader, we cannot kumbaya dangerously mentally ill men out of their psychosis. Reader, we cannot always hug it out. Reader we cannot embrace this new age restorative justice community based horsesh1t pseudo-care because we feel uncomfortable about doing what must be done.