Vancouver records third homicide in less than a week
Posted March 14, 2017 12:08 pm.
Last Updated March 14, 2017 1:19 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Detectives with the Vancouver Police Major Crime Section have been called in after a deadly stabbing on the city’s Downtown Eastside.
They say at about 3:30 a.m., police were called to East Hastings Street between Main and Columbia where officers found a man suffering from multiple stab wounds. The 19-year-old had collapsed on the ground in front of Insite. “We have limited information at this point as to what happened to this individual. It appears it may be as a result of an altercation that happened within that block. We are currently reviewing video, looking for witnesses to find anybody else that can provide information as to what happened,” explains Vancouver Police Staff Sergeant Randy Fincham.
So far this year there have been seven homicides in Vancouver, while in all of 2016 there were 12 killings. Police addressed, what appears to be, an uptick in violent crime.
“Certainly to have seven homicides by March — I haven’t seen numbers like this for a while. Hopefully it’s not telling of what the rest of the year will be. Any one homicide in Vancouver is one homicide too many. We will look at these incidents to see if there is a possible reason or method behind why this is happening.
“The seven homicides don’t appear to be connected at this point, but certainly, if we do find a connection and find a way that we can slow these numbers down — hopefully stop these numbers and homicides from happening in Vancouver — then that’s something we will work towards,” adds Fincham.
Despite the crime, police are reiterating the city is a safe place to be. “We don’t see violent incidents like this very often. Certainly, not in a fairly short time frame. These are higher numbers that we traditionally see at this time of the year. To see incidents of stabbings in Vancouver, they’re quite rare as well. All of the latest incidents that we’ve seen, violent incidents in Vancouver — on the south side of False Creek that we saw a couple of weeks ago — none of these appear to be related. They appear to be completely separate acts,” says Fincham.
The motive in the city’s latest homicide is unknown at this point. No one has been arrested.
Last Friday the fifth and sixth homicides of the year were recorded after a double shooting in East Vancouver. No arrests have been made in that case either.
