Quote:
Originally Posted by Prometheus
But you are wrong. You can win. The lessons of 1994 and 2011 are clear. You do the thing that was not done in either 1994 or 2011. You arrest the relatively small number of instigators at the very earliest stages of unrest, snuffing out the situation before things get out of control. You maintain order before you lose it. The police were unable to this in 1994 because they had no idea that anything was going to happen and thus had no presence in place. In 2011, the police were supposedly ready but (for some ineffable reason) chose not to do this and just watched on the sidelines as an initial spark was allowed to grow into a wildfire.
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I don't see why people are giving you a hard time, when there is a lack of law enforcement, there is a breakdown in order. If they could have arrested the original trouble makers and disperse the crowd right away, things could have been different.
The police might have been overly cautious as they probably didn't want to injure people who were just stuck in the crowd and not causing trouble, but it really felt like they were unprepared. They definitely waited too long to take action (either through being too cautious or unprepared) and their lack of action resulted in many people being injured anyway. I don't see how the police rushing the first trouble makers could have made things worse than they wound up being in the end.
Quote:
Originally Posted by agrant
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. And its always easier said than done. You've got a mob of thousands.... The police make a move to arrest people, and guess what will happen?
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It depends. Maybe some police might have taken a few punches or thrown rocks, but they were wearing body armor and could take it. Instead, they saved their own necks and people in the street ended up getting beaten up and stabbed, and we almost lost several buildings to fire.
Most of the crowd was just there for the game. For a long time, it was just a handful of people breaking stuff and everyone watching as the police held their line. People treated the police like they were the guards at Buckingham Palace and wouldn't do anything... because they didn't do anything. This just caused more people to be brash and feel encouraged. It was a breakdown in order due to a lack of consequence. Mob mentality took over as there was no recourse to their actions.
The police should have menaced the crowd, and it would have caused the cream to rise to the top. Those just caught in the middle would start to back away, while the a-holes moved towards the police. Then you hit them with flashbangs and tear gas. This is what they did, but well after the crowd's balls swelled past the point of no return. They also seemed hesitant to arrest anyone or move fast enough to stop any window breaking and looting.
I was watching live on TV, and over the course of an couple hours, the police chased the rabblerousers around the block. They set up a line of police and just watched them loot Sears, and at this point there were more police than real rioters (half of the participants were still just watching as they weren't in any danger). Then they actually had the worst of them caught between 2 groups of police on Howe (next to the VAG). But instead of move in and arrest the people who were clearly causing the most trouble (they were setting up fence barricades like they were going to make a stand against the police) they sat there long enough to let them escape through Robson Square. They chased them down Robson and turned down Burrard and chased them up the hill. At this point I made a break for it and left my friends condo where I watched the game and headed for the Skytrain (which was deserted).
At this point their strategy was working, the police were moving fast enough that a lot of rioters didn't have time to break anything and were getting discouraged and disbanding, but all the damage had already been done. If they had moved a bit faster at first, what ended up happening several hours later might have happened right away, without the Bay almost burning to the ground (and the only reason it didn't was because staff and customers were inside protecting it).
When massive property damage is happening and civilians making a stand are being beaten in street by mobs, the police shouldn't care so much about their own safety and instead save people. They were more concerned about their own backs instead of the innocent people being beaten up and stabbed.
The people who were staying around Georgia after the game was well over deserved anything that came their way (flashbangs, teargas, pepperspray, tazers and even rubber bullets). I don't care if they were causing the trouble or just trying to capture the best facebook profile photo ever, after a certain point, anyone there was guilty. But instead of being quashed they spread their mayhem and many innocent people and businesses suffered.
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