Crime and street disorder have become a key political issue in British Columbia amid a series of violent stranger attacks and other public safety incidents. Here are some of events that have made the issue prominent with the public.
Sept. 10, 2023: Three people are stabbed at a community festival in Vancouver’s Chinatown. Blair Donnelly is charged with aggravated assault for the attacks. He had previously been found not criminally responsible for stabbing his teenage daughter to death in 2006 and was on an unescorted pass from a forensic psychiatric hospital — despite having been found to pose a “significant threat” — when the attack occurred.
Nov. 4, 2023: High-risk sex offender Randall Hopley walks away from a halfway house in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, spending 10 days at large before turning himself in to police. Hopley had been released to live in the halfway house in 2018 on a 10-year supervision order but was arrested in January 2023 for allegedly violating the order’s conditions by getting too close to children while visiting a library. He was on bail for that charge when he went missing.
April 23, 2024: Kulwinder Singh Sohi is stabbed to death near White Rock’s pier and promenade. It is the second apparently random stabbing in the area in about 48 hours; the other victim survives. Dimitri Hyacinth, 27, is charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault over the stabbings.
June 5, 2024: Japanese restaurant chef Wataru Kakiuchi, 32, is stabbed to death near Vancouver’s Chinatown. Timothy Isborn is charged with second-degree murder. Police say Isborn and Kakiuchi did not know each other.
June 16, 2024: Surrey resident Tori Dunn, 30, is found with life-threatening stab wounds at her home and later dies. Her family calls it a home invasion. Adam Mann, 40, is charged with second-degree murder. He was facing an unrelated aggravated assault charge for an alleged attack in Surrey three weeks before Dunn’s death and has a criminal history dating back decades.
July 11, 2024: A Victoria paramedic is attacked after being flagged down to help a man needing medical attention near an encampment on Pandora Avenue. Police say about 60 people surround emergency responders. Victoria Police Chief Del Manak said fire and paramedic crews will no longer attend calls in the area without police escorts.
July 22, 2024: Police in Vancouver arrest a suspect after three men are stabbed downtown in a series of attacks that appear to be random. Police say the victims were all stabbed within 15 minutes in the same area of Granville Street, and none of the victims knew each other or the alleged attacker.
Sept. 4, 2024: Seventy-year-old Francis David Laporte is killed and a 56-year-old man’s hand is cut off in a pair of stranger attacks minutes apart in downtown Vancouver. Police arrest Brendan McBride, 34, who was on probation for a 2023 assault in White Rock, B.C., and was previously sentenced to 12 months of probation in 2021 after being convicted of assault causing bodily harm. Police say he has had 60 previous interactions with officers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2024.
