WVPD officers assaulted after group of youth surrounds them on Canada Day

WEST VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Celebrating Canada’s birthday at Ambleside Park in West Vancouver on the holiday Monday got rough and mostly because of the amount of alcohol being consumed.

Police say at about 8:30 p.m., a group of up to 300 people between the ages of 12 and 20 turned on them as officers tried to approach and crack down on those who were drinking in public.

A desperate call for back-up was made when members were surrounded by the group who screaming and yelling. “I’ll save you the foul language, but they were using quite colourful language and swearing at police while they were trying to do their job,” explains WVPD Constable Kevin Goodmurphy.

One of the two officers was punched in the face.

“When you see blood, this is the human aspect of it all. We’re police officers but we’re human. When you see somebody get injured like that, that you’re working with and they’re bleeding all over the place, it rattles you.”

The group involved was part of a much bigger gathering that was at the beach to enjoy the festivities and fireworks and desperate calls for back-up were made when as members faced an outnumbered crowd.

“It was quite intense and quite dynamic because our officers were trying to protect themselves, they were trying to protect people from within the group mitigate any further violence that could have taken place. [They] were openly consuming liquor and getting quit riled up and when three of our officers went to intervene with one young person who was seen consuming liquor, [a] young person is alleged to have taken a run at one of our officers. And when those officers were dealing with that young person, a lot of the people from the rest of the group surrounded these officers and began chanting and swearing. One of the officers said they had beer cans thrown at them while they were trying to deal with this one individual.”

It’s not clear if those as young as 12 years old were drinking booze.

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“Our officers spoke to some people who are apart of this group who were 12 years of age, they weren’t necessarily the ones that were in the more violent, vocal and intoxicated group. But definitely amongst this group of young people there were many that were consuming liquor.”

Two teens were arrested but later released.

“We didn’t end up speaking to many of their parents other than those were directly involved and specifically the two that were arrested — we did speak to their parents,” explains Goodmurphy. “This is a very isolated type of incident and I was speaking to officers who’ve been at West Vancouver Police for upwards of 15 years who’ve never seen an incident like this where young people have turned on officers.”

Investigators say they have no information something like this would happen again the next time there is a celebration being held or a long weekend.

“We are absolutely disappointed in the behaviour of these kids. A lot of people want to come to our local beaches and parks — families, young people, youth and enjoy it lawfully and respectfully and unfortunately, this small group has ruined that in a way for a lot of people and definitely did that night.”

He says they had to shut down access to the park which meant those who were involved couldn’t get out and those looking to take part in the festivities couldn’t get in.

“I can say that our officers will continue foot patrols throughout parks and beaches over the summer months and we’ll be taking a pretty hard stance when it comes to things like violence, open liquor consumption and other contraventions of the Liquor Control and Licensing Act.”

Investigators are still mulling over whether charges will be forwarded to Crown Counsel involving the pair who was arrested. “Obviously, with one of them that is alleged to have struck an officer in the face — we are taking this extremely seriously and we are looking at gathering further information before making a determination.”

Without a doubt there were plenty of cellphones at the beach that night and police hope anyone who witnessed what happened comes forward.

This case also serves as a reminder that you can’t drink in any parks or beaches and consuming open liquor in public is against the law.

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