A few weeks ago, on the other side of Canada, a different kind of riot broke out, of disorganized drunken idiots after the loss of the Stanley Cup by the Vancouver Canucks. This wasn't an international conference, and security was handled at a city level. It wasn't handled perfectly, but it was handled humanely, and riot tactics were used in the correct manner against the correct people.
Here's a letter * written by a suburban Vancouver officer called in to help with the riots:
Dear 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup Rioters,
Please stop saying you’re sorry. Stop posting YouTube videos begging for forgiveness. Stop writing letters asking that society cut you some slack and leave you alone.
You started “harmless” fires. You torched other men and women’s cars whom you’d never met and never did you wrong. You assaulted firemen as they arrived to try and deal with your “mistakes”. You took limited, valuable emergency resources away from good people who needed them. You endangered more lives by tying up emergency services than you ever considered.
You showed up to hospital emergency rooms crying because you’d been exposed to tear gas. You got obnoxious and demanded to be treated like you were somehow dying. You knew it was a riot, you chose not to leave, you chose to stick around and breathe the tear gas in. You took nurses and doctors away from people who needed their care to live.
What brought a tear to my eye, after the gas had cleared, was standing in the middle of an intersection at about 3am the only people I’d seen for the last 30 minutes were other police officers, until a shop keeper brought us a case of water. Then I saw a random person with a broom clearing the sidewalk. I had a duty to respond, the citizens of Vancouver immediately afterward could have just left it up to those paid to deal with it. They didn’t just stand by, they came out in force and cleaned up after your indiscretions. Everyone I saw that early morning thanked me, I was only doing my job. I have the utmost respect for all of the people from Vancouver and the surrounding areas that came downtown and volunteered to clean up after you.
You owe Vancouver and the surrounding population more than mere words. Don’t you dare ask for our forgiveness without taking responsibility. You can’t fix life altering injuries with an “I’m Sorry”. You can’t repay someone’s car loan with a YouTube video. You ask that people leave you and your family alone but you offer no way to replace priceless losses.
You’ll sleep soundly in your bed tonight because men and women like me will always be there to deal with your poor choices. You have no idea how fortunate you are, even after we arrest and charge you. Even though you disgust me, if you call for me in the middle of the night I’ll respond. I’ll protect your life and property because it’s right and it’s what I do.
The evening of June 15, 2011 fellow emergency services personnel, my brothers and sisters, left our families at home and while grossly out numbered stood to fight. The morning of June 16, 2011 the true heroes emerged to volunteer their time and restored my faith in humanity.
Spontaneous graffiti on the boarded up windows of a
department store that was vandalized.
* I condensed it a bit. You can click the link to see the original site.
4 comments:
This was the first season I actually 'got' the game of hockey and was enjoying all the ups and downs of the Canucks playoff season (for those who don't know me, I live in Vancouver)
The atmosphere in the city up until that last game was electric ... and inspiring.
Maybe we were still dancing to our memories of the Winter Olympics the previous year, but there was such joy in the streets as thousands and thousands of people gathered almost spontaneously in the streets.
The city responded and provided larger and larger spaces for these gatherings.
For that last game we watched it in our home and when it was obvious the Canucks weren't going to stage a spectacular comeback we drowned our sorrows in cups of tea and carried on with our evening, unaware of what had already begun in the streets.
Perhaps it was inevitable that a combination of alcohol and testosterone would destroy the dream. (That inevitability seems to crush so many dreams. So many angry young men, and women - although angry young women tend to implode rather than explode. Just as destructive though)
Be that as it may, I came to my computer the next morning and read the headlines, "Vancouver Hockey Riots."
It felt like a blow to my chest.
I scrolled through the reports and felt tears of anger and grief and rage at the sheer waste rise up and flow down my face.
This wasn't my city, I thought incredulously, not my people.
But ... it was my city, my people, and the sad truth is that in our world, on this wonderful blue planet, for the shiny bright things to happen they must cast shadows.
But ...for every shadow cast a hero appears.
Heroes that stood in front of the mob and tried to stop them. Heroes that wrote the messages on those boards, heroes who through social media organised clean-up crews the next morning to help the regular city crews. Heroes who showed our first responders in so many unassuming ways that we support them.
My city is an alchemy of shadows and heroes, and perhaps it, and I, have grown a little too.
Thanks for writing this post Mabel. I didn't know I needed to say these words until I began composing my comment.
Eloquent and heartfelt. And it echoes what I heard from my mother, who lives there too--I agree that I think there was a carry-over feeling from the Olympics and such.
Except my mother was up and watching tv so she saw it all unfold. (We were on the phone part of the time.) My brother was trying to work his overnight shift downtown when he and the other staff were told by the security guard to leave the store, and spent the night at a manager's nearby apartment. My brother's the one who posted the link to that photo, and I think the police story too (or it was my mum.)
An emotional event for a lot of Vancouverites, that's for sure. !! Thanks for sharing. :-)
Thanks for posting the letter, very eloquent. I live in one of the suburbs just across a bridge. Our son, DIL and doggie, live in False Creek, went for a walk after the game. When they saw the smoke, they were so upset and saddened their city was being destroyed by hooligans. Thankfully many of us came out to support and clean the city. A very black night. It is true the good feelings from the Olympics may have given a false sense that all would be fine. They were going to riot whether the Canucks had won or lost. It was their agenda to wreck the city. It was a very sad day for us.
I can't imagine seeing smoke. Yikes! I believe the last hockey riot in Montreal was when we WON. So we have pretty low expectations of ourselves, here. Plus we had the Guns N Roses concert riot too. But when people move in to clean up after--that's the kind of thing I remember. :-) Those small gestures of kindness mean so much.
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