A man in a vehicle raced along a street lined with food trucks at a Filipino community festival in Vancouver killing 11 people and injuring two dozen others in an attack the interim police chief called the “darkest day” in the city’s history.
Deputy Chief Const. Steve Rai told a news briefing on Sunday that the death toll could rise further after the attack in which a black Audi SUV sped through a South Vancouver street crowded with hundreds of festival patrons.
Witnesses have said victims were sent flying as a vehicle sped through the crowd at the Lapu Lapu Day festival just after 8 p.m. on Saturday night, and Rai said the casualties were of all ages, including “young people.”
“It’s just a tragedy all around for many families,” Rai told a news conference.
A 30-year-old Vancouver man was arrested at the scene and remains in custody.
Rai said police have had a “significant history” of interactions with the man.
“We’ve had substantive contact with him over mental health issues,” he said.
While a motive is not known, he said police were confident terrorism was not involved.
The suspect won’t be identified until charges are laid, Rai said.
The attack left bodies and debris strewn across a long section of road near Fraser Street and West 43rd Avenue.
“This is the darkest day in our city’s history,” Rai said, calling the attack a “senseless, heartbreaking act of violence.”
Realtor Abigail Andiso said she saw a couple dozen people on the ground after the black SUV roared through the middle of the crowd at the festival.
“The car went just through the whole street,” she said.
“I can see straight away there’s about 20 or 30, maybe 20 people down, and everyone is panicking. Everyone is screaming and nobody knows what to do.”
B.C. Emergency Health Services says its ambulances took 26 patients to hospital in conditions “ranging from critical to serious.”
Police said the victims were sent to nine hospitals around the Lower Mainland.
Carayn Nulada said she pulled her granddaughter and grandson off the street and used her body to shield them when she realized what was unfolding. She said her daughter was clipped by the SUV.
“I saw people running and my daughter was shaking.”
Nulada was in Vancouver General Hospital’s emergency room Sunday looking for news about her brother, who suffered multiple broken bones.
Doctors identified him by presenting the family with his wedding ring in a pill bottle and said he was stable but would need surgery.
Witness Nic Magtajas described an SUV roaring through the crowd at high speed.
“I saw a bunch of people go over, go high up from the impact of hitting the car,” said Magtajas, 19.
Police barricades and tape sealed off a section of Fraser Street from West 41st Avenue to 43rd Avenue and bunches of flowers were starting to pile up in tribute to the victims on Sunday.
Rai said a risk assessment was conducted before the event and police had decided no heavy-vehicle barricades would be placed at the event.
While Rai said he was confident that assessment was “sound,” a review of the circumstances surrounding the planning would be conducted with the City of Vancouver.
“It goes without saying, this will change the landscape for deployment for police,” Rai said, noting they assess about 1,000 protests and 2,200 events a year.
“The system has worked up to this point.”
Police said a 24-hour assistance centre had been established at the Douglas Park Community Centre, on West 22nd Avenue.
“Vancouver Police officers and victim services professionals have been deployed to help anyone who has not been able to contact a loved one who was at the Lapu Lapu (Festival),” VPD said on X.
Political leaders expressed dismay at the incident, with Prime Minister Mark Carney briefly pausing his election campaign to address the attack at a news conference.
“Last night, families lost a sister, a brother, a mother, a father, a son, a daughter,” he said in Hamilton, Ont.
Carney said Canadians were shocked, devastated and heartbroken as he offered condolences to the Filipino-Canadian community and the broader communities of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver.
The attack made international headlines and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said he was “completely shattered” to hear the news and expressed “deepest sympathies to the families of the victims and to the strong and thriving Filipino community in Canada.”
“We are one with the families of the victims and the Filipino community in Vancouver during this difficult time,” he said in a statement posted to social media.
King Charles said he and his wife were “profoundly saddened” by the attack and “send our deepest possible sympathy at a most agonizing time for so many in Canada.”
“Stay strong, our friends in Canada and the Philippines,” wrote Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiyy in his own statement of condolence.
Lapu Lapu Day is named after an Indigenous resistance fighter in the Philippines who fought against Spanish colonization in the 16th Century.
The incident is the latest horrific car attack to take place in Canada in recent years.
A Quebec man is accused of killing two children and injuring six others in February 2023 when a city bus drove into a Montreal-area daycare.
Four members of a Muslim family were struck and killed by a pickup truck in June 2021 in an attack a judge later deemed an act of terrorism.
In Toronto on April 23, 2018, a 25-year-old man drove a rented van into mostly female pedestrians on Yonge Street, killing 11 people.
— With files from The Associated Press.
Comments