Random Attacks Leave Vancouverites Feeling Unsafe

Queen Elizabeth Theatre was cordoned off by police yesterday

People in Vancouver were shaken by the horrific attacks in the downtown area yesterday morning that left one man dead and another with a severed hand.

Today 34-year-old Brendan Colin McBride of White Rock made an appearance in court charged with aggravated assault and second-degree murder. In court he reportedly sat on the ground and gave a wordless wail.

Yesterday morning around 7.40am, Vancouver police received reports of a man in his 50s who was attacked at Cathedral Square at Richards and Dunsmuir who was bleeding from his head and one hand severed.

Blood stains at Cathedral Square from the attack

Less than 10 minutes later at the plaza of Queen Elizabeth Theatre at West Georgia and Hamilton -- just across from the CBC -- another man who was 70 years old was attacked and later died. 

About an hour later, McBride was arrested at Habitat Island, near Olympic Village. On Google maps it would take around 23 minutes to walk there, if he took the route of walking across the Cambie Street Bridge.

VPD Sergeant Steve Addison confirmed the man's severed hand was reattached. 

Perhaps just as shocking was that McBride has had 60 recorded run-ins with the police, and VPD Chief Constable Adam Palmer says the suspect "appears to be a very troubled man".

Why wasn't anything done earlier? If someone has had 60 documented contacts with the police, surely something is wrong with that person?

All day today the CBC Radio Vancouver talked about the attacks, interviewing Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, who said there needed to be more of a concerted effort from provincial and federal governments, and admitted he was unable to fulfill his election promise of hiring 100 mental health nurses to work with police officers; apparently only 20 have been recruited.

Police Chief Palmer says suspect known to police

Listeners these two days were terrified and many said the former mental health institution Riverview should have never been shut down, that people with mental illness should be in a place where they cannot harm the rest of the population.

However, Dr Bill McEwan who has worked in the Downtown Eastside for a long time says Riverview, where he had worked at, was a terrible place for the mentally ill because of the facilities and care there. He says they need more treatment made available.

Another call-in show had callers who talked about not being able to get treatment for their loved ones who were psychotic, and a man was forced to go on pension because he was diagnosed as mentally ill but could not get the treatment he needed and is contemplating leaving the country to get help. Another talked about how their mentally ill daughter was living in a building with drug addicts.

It seems like many systems and governments have dropped the ball and there is no focused strategy to figure out how these people will be treated on a case-by-case basis, as each person's needs are different, how they will be housed, treated, and somehow get back on their feet, and how this will all be paid for.

The other frustrating thing is that these people need to recognise they need help before they can get treatment -- if they can get access to it. 

Hopefully these incidents will be the tipping point -- to get governments into action and be accountable for what is happening on the streets of Vancouver, and the rest of British Columbia. While the crime rate is statistically down, we are still seeing horrific crimes like the ones committed yesterday. It's the randomness that makes it so terrifying...