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Prosecutor Patti Tomasson told a judge that the Crown would apply to have the proceedings televised involving people accused of participating in the June 15 riot. B.C. Premier Christy Clark has said she wants to see riot-related court proceedings televised for the public.
The prosecutor gave notice Wednesday at the bail hearing of Ryan Dickinson, who remains in custody. His case was adjourned until Friday at 9 a.m. at Vancouver Provincial Court.
The lead police investigator for the 2011 Stanley Cup riots says the City of Vancouver’s decision to allow throngs of young people to congregate and drink in the downtown core was a “recipe for disaster.”
The Vancouver Police Department has previously said some of its recommendations in the lead-up to the June, 2011 Stanley Cup finals were ignored, but police have not criticized the city so directly before now.
Sergeant Dale Weidman with the Vancouver Police Department, speaking to an Ottawa security and intelligence conference Wednesday, prefaced his statement by noting he has to “keep some of my comments to myself because I still have to bring home a paycheque.”
But, he said, it was bad planning to let a volatile mix of factors come together in the streets surrounding the Cup final at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena.
After a four-months-and-counting investigation that involved scores of officers and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the Vancouver police finally got around to recommending charges in connection with the 2011 Stanley Cup riot.
Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu said Monday that a total of 163 charges are being recommended by police against 60 suspected rioters. And the news came with the promise of hundreds more to come.
The announcement follows what the police chief vowed is the most extensive criminal probe ever launched by his department. More than 5,000 hours of digital imagery were viewed by 50 forensic analysts representing 40 law-enforcement agencies from across North America and the United Kingdom.
Although 42 people turned themselves in and hundreds have been identified, police have made no arrests after riots in Vancouver following the Stanley Cup finals.
Vancouver police were overwhelmed and underprepared the night of the Stanley Cup final and lost control of the crowds before the game even began, a report has found.
But the independent review, released Thursday, also said that no number of officers would have been enough to stop the thousands of young, drunk fans from rioting.
Former VANOC chief John Furlong, one of the co-chairs of the review, said despite the police response that night, blame for the riot falls on “thugs and villains and people who cheered them on.” He added that police and other officials made heroic efforts to contain the riot.
“We believe then and we believe today that lynching is not the appropriate response to a riot,” wrote authors Furlong and the other co-chair, lawyer Douglas Keefe. “But we do assign blame. We blame the people who started the riot.”
