Monday, June 20, 2011

Post Hangover

Now that the city is getting back to some form of normalcy, I feel the knot in my stomach releasing. Although I maybe had one beer on Wednesday during the game, my hangover lasted about 4 days. As my friend Shannon wrote on her blog, I wish I could have gone down to the city core and helped out with the clean-up..or put a post it on the police car or a note on the boarded up windows of the Bay.


(pictures by foodieatthefinishline.blogspot.com)

The embarrassment was too much for some people in this city and I know we are all trying to just get back to the day to day lives we had before the riot.

I have mixed feelings about the below apology. Watching it made me mad, tear up and sorry for him and his future all at the same time, but made me wonder if he hadn't been photographed would he have come forward? I guess I can appreciate that he has waived his right for his name not to be released to the media. Maybe this is a start to the healing for Vancouver. I know a lot of people (comments on FB where Global TV posted this video) actually do not accept his apology, but I do feel it is coming from the heart.

7 comments:

  1. I've got mixed feelings about that video too...for most of the same reasons. I'm not convinced about the sincerity more because I wonder if he is apologetic and remorseful because he did a bunch of things he shouldn't have or because he did a bunch of things he shouldn't have and got caught.

    I've waffling between the two.

    Partly because his dad in on record saying we don't know the whole story, that we don't knwo what happened after...there is another video of the kid lighting the police car on fire (I couldn't find it to link to it) where you see him then dump some lit paper or something in the front seat as well.

    Then another guy comes along and pulls the burning whatever out of the front seat and the burning shirt out of the gas tank. The father's words make me feel like the unsaid part is "because what happened after is that my kid didn't actually succeed in blowing up the police car. Because someone else intervened. But because my kid didn't actually blow it up (because what else could his intent be in stuffing a flaming shirt in the gas tank) then he shouldn't be held accountable."

    Oh this whole thing makes me mad. Yes people make mistakes, but most people's mistakes don't involved destroying someone else's city.

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  2. I can understand his comment on why he did it. I know we are all waiting for someone to come out and say...I hate Vancouver and this is why I did it, but as a spectator down there that night..(be it on the very outskirts) I can't tell you why I was there either. I stuck around...I was part of the problem too. I didn't try to set a police car on fire mind you, but I still can't explain why I wanted to hang around.

    I've never been that person that stops for accidents.. but that's the only way I can relate...we stopped and just stared at the shit going down and did nothing to help it...not even move on right away...well...mostly because we couldn't get out..but we could have tried harder. I almost feel as much guilt as this kid!

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  3. I know...it's one of those things that we'll never really get an answer for...or if we do, we won't be satisfied. Exactly because I'm sure you're not going to hear too many people say they did it because they hate the city. Pretty much anyone who has apologized (formally through the media or more informally through social media or a blog) has said the same thing - I just got caught up in the moment and I don't know why I did it. It was such an unbelievable thing...I was glued to the tv for hours, so I can see how people stuck around to watch...I just felt like it wasn't real and it was unbelievable but I couldn't tear myself away...and I'm sure those feelings were multiplied a million times if you were actually in the middle of it.

    I feel guilty too...and I wasn't even there. I feel like we should have been able to do something to make it stop...maybe our collective guilt is a sign of some other problem...

    The people I have no time for - the ones who allegedly brought riot gear downtown with the intent of rioting. That's a completely different mentality!

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  4. PS I also think I'm cranky and PMS-y and my retired VPD mounted officer FIL was over last night and his take on the whole is decidedly more pessimistic than mine ever has been, but it's likely clouding my already PMS-y mind!

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  5. Oooh that would have been interesting! To hear it from a VPD officer.

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  6. It was...he was on the ground in 1994 and wasn't prepared for a riot - he was on duty in South Vancouver and was called in as reinforcement. He wasn't sure how many people finally were convicted in 1994, but it was a tiny number compared to all of the damage and then all of the work the special riot investigator task force did. He figures based on the larger scale this time a few more people will be convicted but not many, mostly because of the "beyond a reasonable doubt" stuff...he wasn't so sure that people would learn their lessons, even with social media going nuts. And by people he meant the entire Lower Mainland, not just the rioters.

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  7. (oh and he wasn't on his horse in 1994...he was in car)

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