‘Alarming’: Vancouver police say city averaging 4 random assaults per day

Vancouver police are reporting what they name an “alarming” uptick in unprovoked stranger assaults amounting to 4 random assaults per day during the last 12 months.

In a thread posted to Twitter, the division stated it had requested strategic researchers to take a “deep dive” into crime statistics after noticing an obvious improve within the incidents.

Analysts outlined an “unprovoked stranger” as somebody who had no earlier relationship with the sufferer and who interacted with the sufferer for lower than 15 seconds earlier than the assault. All incidents had been “unreasonable given the circumstances,” in line with police.

After crunching the numbers on assaults reported to the VPD between Sept. 1, 2020 and Aug. 31, 2021 police discovered 1,555 unprovoked stranger assaults involving 1,705 victims.

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Of these recordsdata, 47 per cent concerned weapons and 28 per cent concerned suspects with psychological sickness.

Simply over three quarters of the victims had been male.

Incidents ranged from a girl out for a stroll close to Trout Lake together with her aged father who was punched within the nostril by what seemed to be a 12-year-old lady to a person having his throat reduce from behind whereas operating errands in Mount Nice.

Whereas police assert the variety of stranger assaults is on the rise, the variety of general assaults citywide has remained comparatively fixed.

Within the first 9 months of 2021, VPD crime stats present 3,508 reported assaults, in comparison with 3,490 studies within the first 9 months of 2020, and three,405 within the first 9 months of 2019.

In September, Vancouver police stated they had been redeploying extra officers within the downtown core amid rising considerations from residents and companies about public security.