Vancouver police chief: the darkest day in our city's history
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Canadian police say a suspect detained after a car was driven at high-speed into festivalgoers in Vancouver had suffered mental health problems. The interim police chief told a news conference that the number of people killed had risen to 11. Dozens more were hurt at the Filipino street festival on Saturday. He said many unanswered questions remained after what he called the darkest day in Vancouver's history. Canada's political leaders say the country is united in grief. Voters go to the polls on Monday in a general election.
Also in the programme: we hear about life in Mandalay, one month after Myanmar's massive earthquake; and an unusual tribute to singer David Bowie- a memorial plaque in the northern English town of Stockport will honour the night he missed his train home after a gig in 1970 and fell asleep at the station.
(Photo: A man places tributes on a fence, the morning after a vehicle was driven into a crowd at a Filipino community Lapu Lapu party, in Vancouver, Canada April 27, 2025. Credit: Reuters /Chris Helgren)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Newsar from the BBC World Service, Camadieu live from our studios in central London. |
| 0:10.5 | I'm Julian Marshall. |
| 0:12.3 | And we begin today in the Western Canadian Port City of Vancouver, where 11 people died and dozens more were injured on Saturday, |
| 0:19.3 | when a car being driven at high speed |
| 0:21.3 | plowed into a crowd |
| 0:22.6 | attending a Filipino street festival. |
| 0:26.1 | Police arrested the driver at the scene. |
| 0:28.1 | They say the 30-year-old man |
| 0:29.8 | had acted alone |
| 0:31.0 | and are not treating the incident |
| 0:33.1 | as an act of terrorism, |
| 0:35.3 | adding that he had mental health issues. |
| 0:38.1 | Steve Rai as Vancouver's interim chief constable. |
| 0:41.5 | This is the darkest day in our city's history. |
| 0:44.9 | Last night, as thousands of members of Vancouver's Filipino community |
| 0:49.2 | gathered for an important cultural celebration, |
| 0:52.9 | the actions of a single person shattered our collective |
| 0:56.6 | sense of safety. It is impossible to overstate how many lives have been impacted forever |
| 1:03.6 | by this lone individual. There are many unanswered questions about why this horrific |
| 1:09.7 | crime happened, the motive of the person who did it, |
| 1:14.0 | and whether anything could have been done to prevent it. There are many things we still don't know, |
| 1:20.2 | but we are working hard to get all of the answers. And addressing the nation, the Canadian Prime Minister |
... |
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