Rioting in the streets of Vancouver, BC

[seaurchin1]

Happening right now, fires being lit, tear gas, police cars being overturned, stores being looted.
Why is this happening? Because Vancouver lost a hockey game. Unbelievable!

http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Georgia+Homer+declared+illegal+assembly+zone+falls +viaduct+outside+Rogers+Arena/4953623/story.html

[willie pete]

They take their hockey serious .......reminded me of an old Rodney Dangerfield joke..he said " Yea hockey, that's a rough sport not for me, too rough.....how rough? .....I was at a boxing match one time and a hockey game broke out....

[Glass]

I don't think it matters who wins or loses the Stanley Cup. It's the same thing every year. It's a good excuse to punch on.

[Twisted Titan]

And the men behind the curtain laugh a hearty laugh as their control over the populace is complete

[Dogman]

Its truly twisted win or lose the fans go berserk , burn , loot and destroy their own sides property. Much worse if they lose and get mad at their team or the winning side and take their anger out at the world in general.

Nut's

[Camp Bassfish]

Did they riot in Boston too? I haven't seen any news indicating that's happening.

[Son-of-Liberty]

People riot over this sort of thing all the time but when they are getting F'ed by government or large corporations they do nothing. It's shameful.

[Dogman]

Years ago I had to go to Binghamton NY for some equipment training and stayed at a hotel downtown. And on the back of the rooms door was a list of everything in the room including the plumbing. It listed the item and how much you would be charged if you destroyed it!

It seems when there are big hockey games in town , they keep watch so you can not check out with out a room inspection. While I was there there was a local game and down town swarmed with people going to the game and the police were very visible compared to other nights.

Yes they do go Ape shit about their games.

[mrnhtbr2232]

This is a classic example of cause and effect. Instead of recognizing the adrenaline and superstition built into sports marketing, people adopt the school of fish approach and act out with a safety in numbers reaction to explore their own anger and selfishness. The group mentality combined with the artificial importance of team identity is likely something none of them even considered. It is through these examples we learn why there are rarely if ever legitimate and effective protests - participants are only brave through association, do not employ individual ethics, and are ruled more by the fear of disappointing their peers than doing the right thing. And in this case the police had little to do with it. Living life through team experience is a poor excuse for their own inadequacies, but the success story here is how effectively they were seduced into a false reality.

[Dogman]

This is a classic example of cause and effect. Instead of recognizing the adrenaline and superstition built into sports marketing, people adopt the school of fish approach and act out with a safety in numbers reaction to explore their own anger and selfishness. The group mentality combined with the artificial importance of team identity is likely something none of them even considered. It is through these examples we learn why there are rarely if ever legitimate and effective protests - participants are only brave through association, do not employ individual ethics, and are ruled more by the fear of disappointing their peers than doing the right thing. And in this case the police had little to do with it. Living life through team experience is a poor excuse for their own inadequacies, but the success story here is how effectively they were seduced into a false reality.

Yes

It worked for Ancient Rome for century's. Let the circus and games began. Football fits somewhere in this too.

[keehah]

This is where I wait for my bus when I'm heading home.

http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2011/06/16/1226076/550475-riot-in-vancouver.jpg

The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION
Inside the hockey riot: The terrifying destruction of downtown Vancouver (http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/hockey/123982849.html?device=mobile)
By: Dene Moore and Tamsyn Burgmann, The Canadian Press
06/16/2011

VANCOUVER - Thick black smoke darkens the sky, billowing from overturned vehicles lit on fire by what started as a small crowd and gained fury over the course of hours, the way a tropical storm becomes a hurricane.

The streets are littered with shattered glass and torn and trampled reminders of the hockey game that just a few hours before had exuberant crowds chanting for a Stanley Cup win.

The windows of The Bay's flagship store on Granville Street have been smashed out, and designer purses looted from street-level displays. Sears will be next, along with Chapters, Future Shop and likely several other stores belonging to owners that believed Vancouver had "grown up" since the Stanley Cup riot of 1994, and chose not to board up their windows.

Wooden pallets are being chucked on the flames of overturned vehicles on the street near The Bay, and the fire appears to have spread to the buildings. Soon, a half dozen fires will be burning on the street, and firefighters will be unable to douse them because it is too dangerous for them to enter the riot zone.

Fighting breaks out among the crowd and I run as four bloodied combatants close in on me, punching and kicking each other onto the shattered glass on the ground below.

But running away is not so easy.

For every drunk kicking at a window or jumping on an overturned car, there are 100 spectators decrying the violence in between snapping cellphone photos and tweeting about the scene unfolding in front of them. The crowd is overwhelming and chaos reigns.

Police are nowhere to be seen in the eye of this storm, but have set up a line blocks away where they are pelted with bottles from a breakaway crowd.

It will be hours before riot squads seem to amass in enough numbers to try and take back the streets. The crowd control officers and mounted police are so vastly outnumbered, that when the violence broke out, they had to pull back and regroup.

Outside The Bay, the crowd cheers when another window is broken. Some try to intervene to stop destruction, but it's only temporary. As the crowd ebbs and flows through the downtown core, it takes only a few short steps to find another target and a more supportive crowd.

Shoes are being tossed from smashed store windows as the crowd moves, and teen girls steal MAC makeup as other people hold pieces of mannequin. In quieter areas, shopkeepers stand outside their buildings looking frightened.

A few blocks from the epicentre, a young man lays in the street, unconscious with his head bleeding as his friends, who appear to be drunk, smack his face and ask him if he's okay. They quickly turn angry on a reporter with a camera.

Many of the faces are now covered with bandanas.

[JohnQPublic]

Yes

It worked for Ancient Rome for century's. Let the circus and games began. Football fits somewhere in this too.

If they want to keep control they need bread, too.

[keehah]

Rioters smash windows at the Bay store in downtown Vancouver. When a man attempts to [beat] one of them, he is beaten by the crowd.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=62b_1308231237

Who needs a surveillance state? Half the crowd is filming.

[keehah]

On Thursday morning, the scene in downtown Vancouver resembles the aftermath of urban warfare. (http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Downtown+Vancouver+tatters+aftermath+Stanley+Riot/4956482/story.html?cid=hot_photo)
http://www.vancouversun.com/life/4958562.bin?size=620x400s

Wailing Wall at the Bay.

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/4959135.bin?size=620x400s
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and B.C. Premier Christy Clark at the memory wall on the side of the Hudsons Bay building during the next morning aftermath of the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver, B.C. on June 16, 2011.

[Down1]

Did they riot in Boston too? I haven't seen any news indicating that's happening.


7 arrests following Bruins victory


http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/201106167_arrests_following_bruins_victory/srvc=home&position=recent

[Down1]

I guess they don't have any "Sovereign Citizens" up there to blame so they had to settle for "Anarchists" as the cause of the riot.

I thought I saw the Sedin brothers in that vid, but then I realized they haven't been seen in Vancouver in a couple of weeks.

[LastResort]

You guys are going to love this:

http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog/Eklund/My-Opinion-Vancouvers-Real-Fans-Were-The-Ones-Who-Were-Attacked/1/36433

From being there and talking to people all night long, I am convinced that last night was a well planned terrorist attack, pulled out by a few idiots who took advantage of a ripe situation. They wore Canucks jerseys to blend in, as any good terrorist would, but they also brought canisters of pepper spray (used to deter bears) and they brought black scarves to wear around their faces..as no good FAN would.

It was the terrorizors....:D

[osoab]

Flash bang to the nuts. That's gotta hurt!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5aaxWub89k

[Glass]

you guys are all barking up the wrong tree. You're missing the big picture.

'Love among the ruins': mystery kiss picture during Vancouver riot goes viral

http://images.theage.com.au/2011/06/17/2434599/riot300-300x340.jpg

Read more (http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/love-among-the-ruins-mystery-kiss-picture-during-vancouver-riot-goes-viral-20110617-1g6kf.html#ixzz1PURXEZNr)

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

http://i.imgur.com/7shie.jpg

[Dogman]

you guys are all barking up the wrong tree. You're missing the big picture.

'Love among the ruins': mystery kiss picture during Vancouver riot goes viral

http://images.theage.com.au/2011/06/17/2434599/riot300-300x340.jpg

Read more (http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/love-among-the-ruins-mystery-kiss-picture-during-vancouver-riot-goes-viral-20110617-1g6kf.html#ixzz1PURXEZNr)

Sort of kinky , reminds me of the late 60's "Make love and not war"!

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

Real Canadians showed up today to clean up - for free

http://i.imgur.com/h45CL.jpg

[joboo]

My apologies to the die hard sports fans, but honestly what else would you expect from a generally low IQ demographic?

The more "sports" the fan is, the more asleep the person is from my experience time, and time again.

Herd mentaility is, by and large, monkey see monkey do. I notice this phenomena while driving all the time. Whatever it is that triggers it, it lies just under the surface in all of us.

Some obviously have more control over it than others. It definitely puts the term (and lyrics) to "welcome to the jungle" into apt perspective.

[osoab]

My apologies to the die hard sports fans, but honestly what else would you expect from a generally low IQ demographic?

The more "sports" the fan is, the more asleep the person is from my experience time, and time again.

Herd mentaility is, by and large, monkey see monkey do. I notice this phenomena while driving all the time. Whatever it is that triggers it, it lies just under the surface in all of us.

Some obviously have more control over it than others. It definitely puts the term (and lyrics) to "welcome to the jungle" into apt perspective.


You forgot booze.

[Glass]

So how would these sports thugs feel waking up in the morning to find someone ran through their neighborhood in the middle of the night and torched their car and broke all the windows on their house?

Why not try it and see?>:D <- devils advocate :D

[keehah]

As I mentioned in the Canadian TeaParties thread, the Canadian Propaganda Corporation (CBC) did more to cause this than anyone. More than the private corporations telling visions, I've learned the government seems to like a population even more dumbed down than the private telling vision stations tend to offer. Mindless sports chatter replaces most politics and culture on the AM radio now. CBC AM and FM seems to hire only happy dull sports promoting zombies and uses them to pump sports and especialy hockey constantly on TV and radio and the Network also hosted and heavily promoted the FanZone (ground zero of the riots).
___________

GeorgiaStraight: Vancouver hockey riot is a symptom of a larger problem (http://www.straight.com/article-399635/vancouver/vancouver-hockey-riot-symptom-larger-problem)

What compels people to tip over cars and light them on fire? Maybe it's because our society is desperately ill.

By Adrian Mack and Miranda Nelson, June 16, 2011

We've heard a lot of reasons (excuses?) batted around as to why last night's post-Cup riot happened. A very outraged man on the radio this morning blamed the whole thing on faulty parenting. Others look at the idiocy of city politicians for inviting 100,000 people into the downtown core, TransLink for ramping up service to a peninsula with limited escape routes, and the provincial order to close downtown liquor stores at 4 p.m., ensuring that those in attendance would be drunk before they even arrived. You can also look to the mainstream media for hyping up this series to unheard-of proportions and constantly reminding the populace of the infamous 1994 Stanley Cup riots.

But maybe what we have is just a sick fucking culture. Maybe as a society, we've simply become borderline psychotic. You only need to ride a bus to see what an angry group of people we’ve become. We're rude, we're snotty, we don't talk or engage with each other. We've created the stupidest generation: a barely literate group of narcissists who don't know how to take care of themselves, but are like military-trained experts when it comes to tagging themselves in Facebook photos.

From all reports, there was a small group of young hooligans determined to riot and smash 'n' grab no matter what the outcome of the game was. Several sites have been set up to post pictures, Facebook screencaps, and video of morons proudly declaring their involvement in the violence. Should we be surprised? And doesn’t it seem a little obvious that there was never going to be a good outcome, regardless of who won? At 4:30 p.m. the streets of the downtown core were already simmering with the dangerous and hair-trigger emotions of the mob, and all that emotion—good or bad—was going to be purged, somewhere, somehow. In the weeks leading up to the final, the magnitude of our bizarre, tribal attachment to a hockey team became more and more clear. And it exceeds far beyond a natural and healthy spirit of competitiveness or an appreciation of the beauty of the game itself. It’s pathological. It’s monstrously unhealthy. And it speaks to a monumental emptiness at the heart of our culture.

So, why are there so many hungry souls out there, ready and willing to bring chaos down on the so-called most livable city on the planet? In reality, matters have only gotten much worse politically and economically since 1994, and Generation Y has been delivered into a beyond-callous world facing a perfect storm of crises. They know it. What does the future look like for the average 20 year old? It's a depressing, empty place where they can't get decent-paying (let alone secure) jobs or ever have a hope of owning property. Can you imagine how much more fearful and angry they would be if they fully comprehended the seriousness of peak oil?

And yet despite the terminal condition of a socio-economic superstructure hurtling towards the edge of a cliff while wondering if it even has enough gas to get there, the market rolls on, plundering the public coffers and starving the arts and education, producing a society that is spiritually malnourished but not sensitive enough to ask why. Meanwhile, we have dissonant messages relentlessly beamed into our heads: wealth is good, the poor have nobody but themselves to blame, personal devices make you happy, war is peace, “Save money, live better”, Don Cherry deserves your attention and respect, and have some pride in your Canucks. Because what the fuck else have you got going for you?

The market practices institutional violence on every single one of us, every day, just by virtue of existing. It's not the game of hockey that's the problem; it's the capitalistic appropriation of our national pastime. It's the myriad of advertisers trotting out the "I am Canadian!" sentiments in order to sell products. It's the message we are force-fed that if we don’t pay attention to the spectacle, we are somehow disenfranching ourselves. That's the way advertising has always worked: make people insecure about a fictional problem, and then sell them the fix.

This isn’t to excuse the rioters, and we should remember and praise those who were there, and who resisted, and who did the right thing. There's a powerful clip on YouTube right now of two men—one in a Canucks jersey, one not—trying to prevent assholes from smashing out the windows of the Bay downtown. They have some initial success, but then the non-jerseyed man pushes a rioter back and gets beaten for his efforts.

But we can’t just blame a few “bad apples.” This riot didn't happen on its own. Society as a whole ensured that it was the only outcome, starting with the assumption that our over-amped if not war-like passion for something as inconsequential as a hockey game is appropriate to begin with, let alone officially sanctioned. But hey, it’s a fucking goldmine for advertisers and a hell of a vacuum to suck in a growing population of bored, distracted, disassociated, and quietly despairing Lower Mainlanders marinated in the hegemony of cheap sensation, and governed by institutions hostile to art, truth, and beauty. It’s a problem that, as always, starts at the very top.

The wrong questions will inevitably get asked in the wake of all this, and the wrong solutions applied. Expect “tougher policing”, and a ramped up culture of intolerance in a city that already turns a blind-eye to a tsunami of social ills. The VPD—which was quick to blame the violence on "criminals, anarchists, and thugs"—is encouraging anyone with high-resolution pictures to email them to the department, but is that really what we want to become? Yes, last night's violence was inexcusable and the offenders should be prosecuted, but the slope towards becoming a Big Brother-like society where we tattle on our neighbours is already slippery enough. Wouldn't it be preferable to live in a society in which we actually knew our neighbours to begin with? To know and trust the people around us to act like responsible individuals? To enjoy a culture of mutual respect rather than suspicion, hyper-competition, and meaningless interaction mediated through our phones and iPads? All we're doing right now is gawking at city-sanctioned spectacles—or plugging in our headphones so we can ignore each other.

There was a beautiful outpouring of love and support for our fair city this morning as hundreds of volunteers took to the streets to help clean up the terrible mess from last night. We do have the capacity to be kind, gentle, thoughtful individuals, and hopefully we can begin to repair the damaged to our tarnished reputation. Unfortunately, there's no simple band-aid solution that will fix a sick society. The symptoms are clearly manifesting but, without facing up to the fact that there is an overarching problem, there is absolutely no chance for us to heal. But perhaps the first step towards solving this systemic problem is to acknowledge the fact that there is actually something wrong with us.

[Ponce]

This riots was only because of a sport and with cops around........think about this........what will happen tomorrow when the riots will be because of food and with no cops around?..............May "The Force" be with us all.

[keehah]

CBC.ca's online hunt for Vancouver's kissing couple (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/06/16/vancouver-riots-kissing-couple.html)

[Comment:]
This whole riot thing is getting blown out of proportion and is turning into some kind of gong show . It seems that the media and others are revelling in the noteriety of it and using it to create drama and conterversory to sell copy and to get noticed. ...Now we have some photo that people are reading way to much into. What a bunch of fools.

[Comment:]
Already found...CBC is a little too late... Vancouver kiss man an Aussie: Mum

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8262417/claims-aussie-traveller-was-caught-in-riot-kiss

Hannah Jones, from Perth, has come forward saying the man in the shot is her 29-year-old brother Scott, who has been living and working in the Canadian city for six months.

Ms Jones said her brother had recently started dating the girl in the photo, identified as Alex Thomas, who is a Canadian.

And his mother, Megan Jones, was shocked to spot her son lying in the middle of the street.

"It is something he would do, that's our boy. He has always lived in his own world, he's special like that. He doesn’t always connect with what going on around him.

"I knew it was him because he doesn't have a lot of clothes with him and he always puts on the same thing.

"I'd have to have my house flooded to get on the news, but he just has to kiss a beautiful girl," she said.

The riot escalated when rampaging ice hockey fans, angry after their beloved Vancouver Canucks team lost a finals game, begun trashing the city. Mrs Jones said her son had been at the game.

"He's over there having the time of his life, quite clearly," she said.

[steyr_m]

It would have happened if they won too. When something like this happens, I think to myself, "reason or excuse"

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

Citizens stopped some of the rioting:

http://i.imgur.com/E5ccZ.gif

[Glass]

I wonder if any of the rioters wore those special G20 boots?

As for the kissing couple. A local Perth lad then.... Aussie Aussie Aussie... Oi Oi Oi. ;)

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

Canadians Speak Out:

"We can't leave a mess lying around! That's crazy!"

http://i.imgur.com/6Nhzq.jpg

[keehah]

Here is a video of the 'kissing couple'.

A second between a G rated state sponsored gang bang and the arrival of a guardian angel as the barking of the hounds of hell echo in the concrete and glass canyon and a planting silhouette in the shape of a black helicopter ads to the ambiance.

New video shows now famous Vancouver riot kissing couple knocked to the ground (http://www.vancouversun.com/news/video+shows+famous+Vancouver+riot+kissing+couple+k nocked+ground/4993578/story.html#ixzz1Q8azWU2d)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30t3vhxSj9o
___________________________

Telus rewards man who defended Robson Street store in riot (http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Telus+rewards+defended+Robson+Street+store+riot/4994966/story.html#ixzz1Q8nuZZOu)

VANCOUVER -- Telus is thanking Chris Ivany, the man who defended their Robson Street store in the Stanley Cup riot before getting knocked out, by giving him an iPhone with six free months of service and donating $1,000 to charity in his name.

"We wanted to thank him for trying to make a positive difference in standing up for our property even though he had no obligation to do so," said Telus spokesman Shawn Hall. "He really demonstrated some remarkable courage."

When notified of the gift and donation Ivany said, ""Wow, that sounds pretty sweet, I just actually signed up with Bell not too long ago and I got a new BlackBerry, but I could use a new iPhone.

"I would do it again, I just feel that we got to get some peace, love and understanding in this planet, not this hate and fighting."

Ivany, a 33-year-old welder, grabbed a piece of wood being thrown by rioters into the store at Robson and Seymour. He then stood on it and urged everybody to stop the destruction before something connected with his jaw and knocked him unconscious.