Vancouver Festival: Driver Faces Murder Charges After 11 Deaths

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (TRAMESH) — Annihilation accuse were filed Sunday adjoin a doubtable in a weekend car ramming advance that asleep 11 bodies amid the ages of 5 and 65 and afflicted dozens at a Filipino ancestry anniversary in the Canadian burghal of Vancouver.

The British Columbia Prosecution Service answerable Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, with eight counts of additional amount annihilation and said added accuse were possible. Investigators disqualified out agitation and said Lo had a history of brainy bloom issues.

Also read: Filipino Festival Vehicle Attack Leaves 9 Dead at Vancouver Filipino Festival

Lo, a Vancouver resident, appeared in cloister and charcoal in custody, prosecutors said.

Some of the afflicted were in analytical condition, as the tragedy befuddled Canada afore a federal election. Authorities had not appear victims’ names by Sunday evening.

A man active a atramentous Audi SUV entered the artery aloof afterwards 8 p.m. Saturday and addled bodies accessory the Lapu Lapu Day festival. He was arrested at the scene.

“It is the darkest day in Vancouver’s history,” Badge Interim Chief Steve Rai told a account conference. Investigators disqualified out terrorism.

“The actuality we accept in aegis does accept a cogent history of interactions with badge and bloom affliction professionals accompanying to brainy health,” he said.

Video of the after-effects shows the asleep and afflicted forth a attenuated artery in South Vancouver lined by aliment trucks. The advanced of the driver’s SUV is burst in.

Kris Pangilinan, who brought his pop-up accouterment and affairs berth to the festival, saw the agent access accomplished the barricade boring afore the disciplinarian airtight on the gas in an breadth that was arranged with bodies afterwards a concert. He said audition the sounds of bodies hitting the agent will never leave his mind.

“He sideswiped addition on his appropriate side, and I was like, ‘Oh, yo yo.’ And again he airtight on the gas,” he said. “And the complete of the acceleration, it sounds like an F1 car about to alpha a race.

“He airtight on the gas, barreled through the crowd. And all I can bethink is seeing bodies aerial up in the air college than the aliment trucks themselves and landing on the arena and bodies babble and screaming. It looked like a bowling brawl hitting bowling pins and all the pins are aerial into the air.”

Pangilinan said that it would be adamantine to accept “that addition has some acerbity adjoin the Filipino people.”

Suspect was bedfast by bystanders afore the badge arrived

A 30-year-old Vancouver man was arrested at the scene. Rai said that the man was arrested afterwards initially actuality apprehended by bystanders.

Video circulating on amusing media shows a adolescent man in a atramentous hoodie with his aback adjoin a chain-link fence, alongside a aegis bouncer and amidst by bystanders agreeable and swearing at him.

“I’m sorry,” the man says, captivation his duke to his head.

Rai beneath to animadversion on the video.

Prime Minister Mark Carney canceled his aboriginal advance accident and two above rallies on the final day of the acclamation advance afore Monday’s vote.

“Last night families absent a sister, a brother, a mother, father, son or a daughter. Those families are active every family’s nightmare,” Carney said. “And to them and to the abounding others who were injured, to the Filipino Canadian community, and to anybody in Vancouver, I would like to action my centermost condolences.”

Carney planned to accompany British Columbia Premier David Eby and association leaders Sunday atramentous in Vancouver.

In 2018, a man acclimated a van to annihilate 10 pedestrians in Toronto. Eight women and two men died. Alek Minassian, who was begin guilty, told badge that he belonged to an online association of sexually balked men, some of whom accept advised attacks on bodies who accept sex.

Witnesses call how they leaped out of the way

Carayn Nalada said that she pulled her granddaughter and grandson off the artery and acclimated her anatomy to absorber them from the SUV. She said that her babe suffered a attenuated escape.

“The car hit her arm and she fell down, but she got up, attractive for us, because she is scared,” said Nulada, who declared accouchement screaming, and blanched victims lying on the arena or adherent beneath vehicles.

“I saw bodies active and my babe was shaking.”

Nulada was in Vancouver General Hospital’s emergency allowance Sunday morning, aggravating to acquisition account about her brother, who was run bottomward in the advance and suffered assorted burst bones.

Doctors articular him by presenting the ancestors with his bells arena in a bolus canteen and said that he was stable, but would be adverse surgery.

James Cruzat, a Vancouver business owner, was at the anniversary and heard a car rev its agent and again “a loud noise, like a loud bang” that he initially anticipation ability be a gunshot.

“We saw bodies on the alley crying, others were like running, shouting, or alike screaming, allurement for help. So we approved to go there aloof to analysis what was absolutely absolutely accident until we begin some bodies on the ground. Others were lifeless, others like, you know, injured,” Cruzat said.

Vincent Reynon, 17, was abrogation the anniversary back he saw badge hasty in. Bodies were arrant and he saw bodies on the ground. “It was like article beeline out of a abhorrence cine or a nightmare,” he said.

Adonis Quita said back he saw the SUV ramming through the crowd, his aboriginal acknowledgment was to annoyance his 9-year-old son out of the area. The boy kept adage “I’m scared, I’m scared,” Quita recalled. Later they prayed together. His son had aloof relocated to Vancouver from the Philippines with his mother to accumulate with Quita, who has lived actuality back 2024. Quita said he worries the adolescent will attempt to acclimatize to activity in Canada afterwards witnessing the alarming event.

Vancouver Ambassador Kenneth Sim said the burghal had “suffered its darkest day.”

“I apperceive abounding of us are aflutter and feel uneasy,” said the mayor. “I apperceive it’s adamantine to feel this way appropriate now, but Vancouver is still a safe city.”

Vancouver’s ample Filipino citizenry was anniversary a civic hero
Vancouver had added than 38,600 association of Filipino ancestry in 2021, apery 5.9% of the city’s absolute population, according to Statistics Canada, the bureau that conducts the civic census.

Lapu Lapu Day celebrates Datu Lapu-Lapu, an Indigenous administrator who stood up to Spanish campaign who came to the Philippines in the 16th century. The organizers of the Vancouver accident — which was in its additional year — said that he “represents the body of built-in resistance, a able force that helped appearance the Filipino character in the face of colonization.”

Eby said the arena won’t let the tragedy ascertain the celebration. He apprenticed bodies to approach their acerbity into allowance those affected.

“I don’t anticipate there is a British Columbian that hasn’t been affected in some way by the Filipino community,” he said. “You can’t go to a abode that delivers and not accommodated a affiliate of that association in the abiding affliction home or hospitals, childcare or schools. This is a association that gives and gives and bygone was a anniversary of their culture.”

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. issued a account cogent accord with the victims and their families.

“The Philippine Consulate General in Vancouver is alive with Canadian authorities to ensure that the adventure will be thoroughly investigated, and that the victims and their families are accurate and consoled,” he said.

The country’s Department of Foreign Affairs said that “we bethink the 1 actor able Filipino association in Canada and adjure for their connected backbone and resilience.”