Vancouver, BC, Canada / June 15th, 2011 –

It was a very rare game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. It ended badly for the Vancouver Canucks. They lost to Boston. Then a riot broke out. I was at the game. Naturally there was a lot of disappointment. Expectations had been high that Vancouver would win its first Stanley Cup. It just didn’t happen.

I stuck around for the on-ice cup presentation then ran into a long lost friend. After about twenty minutes with him I headed up to Georgia Street where there appeared to be a lot of commotion. Before I could get there, I could see billowing black smoke coming from near the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and the Post Office. People were gathering and chanting in the street while others perched on buildings to watch two burning cars. There was a stand-off with the police confronting a very vocally defiant and angry crowd. Vancouver’s second Stanley Cup riot was in full swing.

I had my camera and both lens and quickly switched into photo journalistic mode. Somehow I had managed to position myself away from the crowd, into open space, so I could photograph them. I ended up behind police lines, as they appeared unconcerned with my lone non-confrontational presence. Within several minutes, I was in the center from which the riot police were forcing the crowds to retreat from. I was a lone cameraman (although there were some TV media people doing their reporting too). I felt a lot safer being in the No Man’s Zone the police had created. I would learn later there had been a lot of injuries from the violence and mayhem. Nothing is safe during a riot. Not even the police.

What I witnessed was very surreal. As I walked further away from the police and the crowds they were trying to disperse, there was a haunting feeling that I was a bewildered survivor witnessing an apocalyptic aftermath. There were several helicopters circling the blackening smoke rising above the downtown core. The streets were devoid of humans but their presence was felt with street litter and vandalism. The retail shops and businesses had their windows smashed, with broken glass blanketing the sidewalks. It was rampant destruction. Plastic beer cups and fast food litter was strewn everywhere, along with Canuck fan support materials and slogans. Cars were ablaze, even on several levels of a parkade. Smoke and heat was emanating from the burning autos on all levels. It felt like someone had opened a boiler room door. I was stunned at the chaos. This was new territory for me. I got a few texts and missed calls from friends who had seen me on TV in the background of the TV reporting. One hour into it all, my adrenaline was still flowing strong.

Through one storefront window I witnessed several women huddled up at the back of a hair salon. Luckily their business had been spared. Their windows hadn’t been smashed but those of their neighbors had. They were terrorized. When I looked east on Dunsmuir Street, I couldn’t help but see the full moon rising. It was seemingly suspended just at the end of the street. It loomed so silently large in what had previously been an amazingly clear powder blue sky. Now the smoke from burning rubber tires, metal, paint and car interiors was permeating the air.

In this particular photo, looking south on Seymour Street, the firemen were laying out hoses and attempting to distinguish flames while the fireman in the center was very focused on that one car. I tried to capture the essence of a fireman battling a specific element of a larger problem. The large pillar and the bell lamps are lighting up the Hudson’s Bay Company building (Canada’s oldest company). I suppose there’s irony in that the car on fire is over parked with the iconic parking meter holding its ground. The mayhem was in full swing throughout the city. Police on horse and foot had pushed the hordes back out of the riot epicenter. But as I discovered later, the crowds were still very active looting and vandalizing everything in their path.

I continued to work my way down Seymour, then switched over to Granville Street. There I witnessed boisterous crowds trying to smash a large plate glass window to no avail, even with the metal leg stands of a street barrier. Irony appeared in weird places. Finally, the looters managed to break the glass doors and surged into the building. Like a stream of ants, they ascended in the escalators, only to return with their hands full of stolen goods in the down escalator. Seemingly intelligent and law abiding citizens were suddenly transformed with total disregard for law and order, logic or rationale. I was mesmerized.

Later still, feeling very weary from a long day and one I knew would be historic, I came upon a section where I encountered a slight breeze. Before I could protect myself, I was blinded by air borne pepper spray. My eyes began burning. That ended my photo assignment. I was literally blinded. Luckily, however, through squinted watering eyes, I noticed someone splashing water on their face from an outdoor tap. I followed suit and it seemed to relieve the sting a bit. It allowed me to make out the direction I needed to go. I was done. I needed to leave all the insanity behind. I needed to get home. It had been a bizarre day with too much to contemplate.

In my view, this riot was the result of a perfect storm of crowd exuberance, political stupidity, herd mentality, police ineptitude, gross alcohol consumption, poor planning, dashed expectations, corporate greed, summer heat, and some bad eggs with agendas and accelerants. Everyone appeared to be pretty sore losers. It wasn’t lost on me (because I photographed it too), that there was a full moon! Like icing on the cake, that said it all.

The fact that the police were ill prepared for a riot was endemic of the whole calamity. Like they hadn’t learned anything from the last Stanley Cup riot? Dah! Also, I honestly believe that had these crowds been stoned on marijuana instead of being ugly drunk, this whole mess might have been an acceptable bummer instead of a repugnant and hostile riot.

I have several other photos of this freaky state of emergency and out of hand riot. They too will be posted, but in due course.