Publication date: August 13, 2022 • 6 hours ago • 8 minutes read • 6 comments A man was shot in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside in what witnesses describe as a police-involved shooting Saturday, July 30, 2022 Photo by Trey Helten /jpg

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A 67-year-old woman was walking in East Hastings, near Carrall Street, in early July when an unknown person hit her head with a butcher’s knife with such force that she fell, hitting her head on the ground.

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The unprovoked attack, which left the elderly man shaken but with minor injuries, is one of several examples Vancouver police cite of an “increase in street disorder” in the Downtown Eastside and nearby neighborhoods since early last month. In each case, the victims did not know the perpetrators, raising fears throughout the city of these attacks by strangers. On July 11, Justin Mohrmann, 29, was near Smithe and Homer streets in Yaletown when he was fatally stabbed in a random attack. A 34-year-old woman was charged. Justin Morman. Photo by Vancouver Police On July 12, a 62-year-old man in a wheelchair was stabbed while trying to get through tents on Hastings Street. On July 18, a woman in her 80s was bear sprayed and left in excruciating pain, the unfortunate collateral damage of people in Hastings fighting.

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On July 25, a woman in her 50s was sitting near Oppenheimer Park when a flammable substance was poured on her head and ignited. On August 6, a man armed with a machete randomly attacked four people in his South Granville bedroom, leaving them with “life-changing” injuries. A 48-year-old man was shot by police and later charged. Crews clean up after the August 6 knife attack. Photo by Arlen Redekop /PNG Tensions in the Downtown Eastside then flared Tuesday when a scuffle broke out between residents and officers after police were called to the Carnegie Center to help with an unruly man. These incidents have naturally worried people. They also raise questions about what is causing this apparent increase in attacks by strangers and what kind of solutions can keep innocent people safe.

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Andrew Drury, a legal advocate who helps Downtown Eastside residents navigate the justice and social service systems, believes the suspects may have been in a state of involuntary psychosis brought on by street drugs. This can happen when a drug like meth is loaded with toxins that mess with people’s brains and make them paranoid. To address this, he said, the province should make a safe supply of meth readily available to this vulnerable population. “I think if people could have access to a clean supply of (the drug) that they’re really looking for, that would solve a lot of problems and a lot of attacks,” Drury said. Vancouver police officers respond to a disturbance in the Downtown Eastside on August 9. Photo by Earl Webber /Submitted A year ago, BC became the first province in Canada to permanently provide access to a safe supply in response to the fatal overdose crisis. The project rolled out slowly and started with opioid replacement options, while stimulants like methamphetamine are not included in the first phase.

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More urgent action is also needed, Drury argues, to set up specialist outreach teams of nurses and social workers who could seek out people suffering from mental health disorders, whether due to drug poisoning or personal trauma, and then de-escalate. condition. “I can’t make anyone feel safe by saying that (street violence) is going to stop immediately because it’s not. And it’s okay to feel anxious and insecure, because it’s not safe. And I just hope that the government puts in more effort to help these people who are in distress,” he said. Andrew Drury, Downtown Eastside Legal Advocate; Photo by NICK PROCAYLO /PNG After last weekend’s knife attack, Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart said the onus is on the provincial government to reform the way productive offenders are handled by the justice system and address the “imperative need” for more mental health services.

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Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth did not directly respond to Stewart’s comments, but said in an email that his government has made “historic investments in mental health and addictions care, while acknowledging that “there is much more work to be done.” The NDP, he added, is still analyzing a legislative committee report released in April on police law reform, which includes a recommendation to “fund a continuum of response to mental health, addictions and other complex social issues with a focus on prevention and community-led responses.” The Canadian Mental Health Association urges caution against concluding that all random acts of violence are committed by people with mental illness or that all people with mental health problems are violent. In fact, he argues that people with mental illness are more often victims of violent crime and agrees with the need for more government funding.

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Farnworth also noted that the government expects a “proliferative offenders” report by former Transit Police chief Doug LePard and Simon Fraser University mental health and corrections expert Amanda Butler to be completed this fall. It is to suggest how to reduce attacks on random strangers and property crimes. The report is being written in collaboration with BC’s Urban Mayors’ Caucus, a group of 13 municipal leaders whose No. 1 demand of the provincial government is to “immediately expand” treatment for addictions and mental illness and consider alternatives to calls of police on mental health and substance use 911 response. These mayors are concerned because random attacks, whether mental health-related or otherwise, aren’t just happening in Vancouver’s urban core.

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On Monday in Nanaimo, a pregnant woman was hit in the stomach with a brick while trying to protect her young daughter from an unprovoked attack by a stranger, RCMP said. VPD Const. Tania Visintin (right) and Natasha Harrison are asking for the public’s help in finding Harrison’s missing daughter, Tatyanna Harrison. Photo by Jason Payne /PNG In Vancouver’s upscale Fairview neighborhood, an unknown man chased, assaulted and terrorized at least five women in an unprovoked rampage on Oak Street near West Broadway on February 26. “In certain areas like the Downtown Eastside or the downtown core, that’s where we see (random attacks) more. But they happen everywhere,” VPD Const. Tanya Vishindin said. “It’s a concern for all of our regions.” Vancouver police statistics from September 1, 2020 to August 31, 2001 showed an average of four stranger attacks per day in the city. That analysis hasn’t been repeated for this year, but Visintin said she believes the trend has continued. The VPD recently reviewed a smaller sample of 44 incidents of street violence or assaults by strangers across the city between March 8 and June 27 in which a suspect was charged. In three-quarters of them, mental health was a “factor” and/or the suspect had been charged with at least one prior crime, police said.

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Despite recent arrests and convictions, we continue to hear community concerns about street violence and stranger assaults. We are worried too. We analyzed data from 44 recent cases to better understand the root causes. Here’s some of what we found: pic.twitter.com/eGTkMPnEsX — Vancouver Police (@VancouverPD) July 18, 2022
Martin Andresen, an SFU criminology professor, co-authored a study that found that in the first year of the pandemic, violent crimes such as assault and robbery increased in less affluent Vancouver neighborhoods but decreased in more affluent neighborhoods. The study, published in January, found that the pandemic’s restrictions were hardest on vulnerable and marginalized populations – essential services they relied on closed, they didn’t have a home to isolate themselves from or lost their jobs. But Andresen argues that these types of violent attacks have not increased in B.C. over the past 25 years, a pattern repeated in most developed countries. He warned that this recent increase in attacks by strangers, while frightening for victims, represents a small percentage of local crime and the majority of cases appear to be in the Downtown Eastside and downtown Vancouver.

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That means solutions can focus on helping the vulnerable population hardest hit by BC’s overlapping crises: the pandemic, the deadly toxic drug supply, and the stranglehold on housing affordability. Citizens in other communities will understandably be concerned about an increase in violent crime, but they should, statistically, have less…