Ramming Incident Shatters Vancouver Celebration
At Vancouver, British Columbia’s Lapu Lapu Day celebration of Filipino heritage on 26 April, a black SUV slowly pulled around a portable barricade and into a street packed with people who were leaving the festival’s grand finale concert. The SUV pulled ahead slowly, the crowd breaking around it like water moving around a boulder in stream, not paying it much attention, likely thinking it belonged to a street vendor trying to get a jump on closing up shop, or perhaps an event organizer needing to get somewhere.
That changed when the motor revved, the vehicle picked up velocity, and it began hitting people, becoming the latest vehicle ramming incident. Eleven people died in the attack, including a five-year-old, and dozens more were injured, underscoring the grim reality that such attacks are highly destructive and difficult to prevent.
The New York Times captured this grim description of the incident:
At first the large SUV crawled through the crowd, and Kris Pangilinan, who was selling clothing at a booth, assumed that it had been let in to help another merchant load up his wares and close shop.
Then, it started to speed up.
“He sideswiped someone where the vendors are,” Mr. Pangilinan said on Sunday after a largely sleepless night. “All of a sudden I hear this exhaust and the sound of the acceleration of the vehicle. Then, boom: He hits dozens of people.”
Shortly afterward, police officers were commandeering the tables in Mr. Pangilinan’s tent to use as makeshift stretchers.
Photos at the scene show an SUV with heavy damage. According to the Associated Press, people from the crowd subdued the driver, and video reportedly from the incident show a man in a black hoodie next to a chain-link fence “alongside a security guard and surrounded by bystanders screaming and swearing at him.” Police arrested Kai-Ji Adam Lo, who faces eight charges of second-degree murder, with more charges likely to be added.
Canada is holding national elections today, 28 April, however authorities told the media they do not believe the attack was an act of terrorism or related to the election in anyway.
“The person we have in custody does have a significant history of interactions with police and healthcare professionals related to mental health,” Vancouver Interim Police Chief Steve Rai told media.
Rai said police had conducted a threat assessment ahead of the large festival, which was expected to draw 100,000 people. The street where the incident occurred was partially closed and was set as a designated area for food trucks.
“There were no known threats to the event or to the Filipino community,” Rai said at a press conference the morning after the incident. As part of the security review, police and festival organizers determined “that dedicated police officers and heavy vehicle barricades would not be deployed at the festival site,” he continued. “While I am confident the joint risk assessment and public safety plan was sound, we will be working with our partners at the city of Vancouver to review all of the circumstances surrounding the planning of this event.”
Other than saying the evidence indicates the incident was not an act of terrorism, authorities have not released any information about possible motivation for this attack. Vancouver is home to more than 38,000 residents with Filipino heritage according to the 2021 census, or 5.9 percent of the city’s population.
“Vehicular ramming attacks are typically opportunistic and not well-planned,” he says. “They are one of the easiest forms of terrorism to carry out—anyone who can drive a car can become a terrorist,” Don Aviv, CPP, PCI, PSP, CEO of Interfor International told Security Management earlier this year during coverage of the vehicle ramming incident that killed 14 New Year’s revelers in New Orleans. “This is precisely why there have been over 200 violent ramming attacks in the past 25 years around the world. There is not much evidence historically that assailants scouted their routes prior to their attacks.”
For more on mitigating intentional vehicle ramming attacks, check out the UK National Protective Security Authority’s Hostile Vehicle Mitigation guidance, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s Vehicle Incident Prevention and Mitigation Security Guide, and the Mineta Transportation Institute’s Smashing into Crowds Analysis of Vehicle Ramming Attacks.
