Riots in Vancouver

This is the city I love:

And this is what people did to it after losing Game 7:

SERIOUSLY. WHAT THE FUCK.

I can't even begin to describe the absolutely heart-wrenching, ashamed feeling I have about this right now. But I'll write more about it later, when I've digested it and have more information. For now, I''ll just be trying to keep updated. But seriously. I cannot even believe this happened. I am not looking forward to the clearly-heart-broken Canucks' response to this tomorrow.

 UPDATE (June 20th): So I'll keep this brief, because everything that can be said has been, multiple times. But the whole Nathan Kotylak drama has been getting a lot of focus lately and, to be honest, what people are doing to the individuals that have evidence of being involved is getting to be almost, if not equally, as bad as the damage done by the riot itself. Seriously, there is a seriously blood-lust going on for people who rioted violently. People who have been identified are having their facebook profiles, e-mails, twitters, home addresses, phone numbers, and even the schedule of the gyms they work out at posted all over the internet. The level of racism and threat of violence that is being shoved down the throats of people involved is awful. Sure, what people did was awful. But, believe it or not, there are actual authorities dedicated to dealing with these people in an appropriate manner. This vigilante, everyday-people-take-revenge is getting almost as disgusting as the car-burning, looting, and violence that took place after game 7. Seriously, threatening to hurt a 17 year old who defaced your city is not only overkill, it's straight up bullshit. I'm all for punishing the people involved, but I say that people should leave it to the police. In the end, it'll be make our city look better.

This is what the VPD have to say:

CITIZEN PHOTOS/TIPS

The response from the public wanting to help the police identify the individuals involved in last night’s criminal activity has been overwhelming. We are grateful for everyone’s help and have included instructions below for anyone wanting to anonymously share videos with our investigators. We appreciate your assistance in getting this information out to the public.

For photos, please send them to robbery@vpd.ca

To anonymously upload videos to the VPD, please upload them to youtube as private videos and share them with robbery@vpd.ca

Here are the instructions on how to do this:

1.       Sign in to your YouTube account and upload the video.

2.       Once the video has finished uploading, click the Account link located (at the top-right of any page ).

3.       Next, click the Uploaded Videos link. Click and choose the video you want to send to us. Then, click the Edit button.

4.       Under the Broadcasting and Sharing Options section (on the left-hand side of the page towards the bottom) you'll see Privacy options. Click the little black arrow / triangle to expand and see all your privacy options (if it’s not already open and you cannot see your privacy options).

5.       If the video is set to Private, you'll see a section to enter an email. Enter robbery@vpd.ca in this section.

6.       Click on Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

For more information visit:

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=157177

Constable 1920 Lindsey Houghton
Media Relations Officer

Anyways, that's my opinion of the vigilante justice attempts that have been going on. Opinions? Comment below.