VPD Takes Message of Personal Safety to the Streets Amid Spike in Stranger Attacks – BC | The Canadian News

After reporting a spike in unprovoked stranger attacks last fall, Vancouver police took their public safety message to the streets Saturday in an effort to connect with residents in four communities.

Pop-up tents were set up from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Main and Keefer streets in Chinatown, the West End Community Center, Olympic Village Square, and Fraser Street and East 49th Avenue, where officers and volunteers from the local police center turned on free personal security alarms and listened to public concerns.

Const. VPD Byron Yee, a 21-year veteran of the force, said the message he and his colleagues are hearing is clear.

“The fact that they don’t feel safe on the streets, the fact that sometimes they need help, and people don’t really see or hear them,” Yee told Global News.

Last October, the department said its crime analysts determined the city was experiencing an alarming average of four random attacks per day, based on statistics on attacks reported to the VPD between Sept. 1, 2020, and Aug. 31, 2021.

On New Year’s Eve, a 22-year-old Asian woman was grabbed and thrown to the ground on busy West Georgia street in a disturbing incident that is being investigated as a possible hate crime.

Last month, a 25-year-old tourist from Mexico was stabbed to death by a stranger inside a Tim Hortons.

A day earlier, a 74-year-old man had his laptop stolen from a public library bathroom.

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Suspects have been arrested and charged in all three attacks.

“There [are] a lot of people who are suffering, there are a lot of people who live with very complex social needs, like drug addiction, untreated mental health and poverty,” said Sgt. Steve Addison with the VPD.

“We are working with our partners to address many of these complex social needs.”

Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart did not respond to a Global News request for an interview on public safety on Saturday.

On January 19, after police released surveillance video of a December 31 stranger attack, Stewart said he felt safe walking the streets of downtown Vancouver.

Last September, the mayor called the police when he felt “unsafe” at a Yaletown wine merchant.

“A customer in the store started harassing me directly,” Stewart told Global News on September 20.

“But he was actually quite aggressive towards my wife Jeanette.”

Vancouver police responded to the mayor’s 911 call for a verbal altercation at the Swirl Wine Store on September 18.

After conducting multiple witness interviews and reviewing video of the incident, the VPD later concluded that there was no basis for a criminal charge.

Meanwhile, the department says the pop-up security initiative will continue after dozens of personal security alarms were distributed to citizens on Saturday.

“They are very noisy so I bought one for myself, one for my daughter and my son one for his girlfriend,” one woman told Global News.

“Now I feel more comfortable walking here in Chinatown,” said another young woman who received an alarm.

Police said they will also maintain a more visible presence in high-crime areas.