Vancouver stranger attack suspect once smashed up a bank in Thailand

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A frightening rampage in downtown Vancouver of apparently unprovoked random stranger attacks hits a sweet-spot for a public crisis — a flashpoint of fear and concern over crime, safety, and holes in the justice and health systems.

Public anxiety was enough to prompt Vancouver’s mayor and the city’s chief of police to speak out — even though an arrest was made in the latest of several recent incidents — because the circumstances of the attacks raised as much exasperation as it soothed.

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The man police charged Wednesday after a flurry of 911 calls of altercations, threats, assaults and a stabbing had been released from jail on probation six days earlier, after serving a sentence for threatening members of his family and prominent but unnamed federal politicians.

The morning of the incidents, he failed to report to his probation officer in Surrey, B.C., and, police said, appeared to have mental health challenges.

That assessment tracks with the odd behaviour of the man captured on video two years earlier during a visit to Thailand. The video shows him angry, violent, and loud, smashing up a bank in the night, and then gentle, calm, and friendly shortly afterwards talking with police about what happened when he “started raging.”

The frightening string of attacks in Vancouver began at 8:40 a.m. Wednesday when a man reported being attacked by a stranger while walking near Seymour and West Cordova streets.

Minutes later, someone called 911 to report a man in a coffee shop near Harbour Centre causing a disturbance that broke a window and frightened customers.

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A man walking near Main and Prior streets was then chased by a stranger yelling and lunging at him with a knife, police said. That victim got away.

Then another 911 caller said a man was chasing people around with a knife on Cambie Street, near Robson Street. A 61-year-old man was stabbed. That victim has been released from hospital.

Kent Douglas Meades, 46, was charged with assault with a weapon, assault and uttering threats.

“We still think it’s possible that other people may have encountered this fellow and perhaps are victims of a crime,” Police Chief Adam Palmer said.

“These are extremely serious crimes and nobody should downplay the impact that they have on our community.”

These are extremely serious crimes and nobody should downplay the impact that they have on our community

At a press conference after the incidents, Palmer and Vancouver’s mayor, Ken Sim, said gaps in both the criminal justice system and the public health system create a worrisome problem not easy to fix.

“People walking around the community who have mental health issues, that is not the sole responsibility of the police — holding somebody in custody, that is up to Crown counsel and the judicial system,” said Palmer.

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“We recommend people to be held in custody all the time, but there’s many incidents when people are released and that is out of our hands, even though we would like to see them in custody.”

Sim said a “revolving door” puts chronic repeat offenders on the streets when they shouldn’t be.

“That requires an all-hands-on-deck approach, including the federal government, because this isn’t something we can just simply arrest our way out of.”

Palmer said Meades had previously been jailed in B.C. for making threats after he returned to Canada from Thailand, where he had also spent time in custody.

Video of the incident in Thailand documents an acute change in Meades’ demeanour, a jarring Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde presentation from violent rage to friendly banter.

Passersby in Pai, a town in northern Thailand popular with backpacking tourists, started taking video of a man shouting in the street outside a closed bank on June 1, 2022.

”I want my f—king money,” the man shouts. “Gimme my f—king money, Bangkok Bank.”

He walks to his motorcycle and removes large rocks he brought with him and hurls them at the bank’s glass doors, which shatter. He then climbs through the debris into the bank and more smashing is heard.

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Something large is thrown from inside, through the front glass, before he emerges. As he gets on his motorcycle to leave, he shouts to the gawkers, “They’re ripping all you guys off. The banks are ripping you off.”

He was soon arrested by police on a nearby street. As he stands with officers for an arrest photograph, his hands cuffed behind him, he is still seething, calling the banks, or maybe police, “evil.” Someone says that’s his opinion, and he shouts back: “No, that’s facts. That’s God’s opinion. That’s God’s opinion…. That’s Buddha’s opinion, that’s Ganesh’s opinion.”

By the time police bring him inside the bank to survey the damage, he appears calm and friendly. His hands are now cuffed in front, suggesting the passage of at least some time. He’s wearing an olive-green T-shirt with a necklace dangling over it, and baggy shorts with colourful writing.

He smiles patiently as the officers speak to him in English.

He is cooperative. The harsh edge in his voice is gone.

When a police officer points to smashed glass and a broken computer and asks if he threw a rock on it, he smiles and answers: “I think I threw a chair. I used a chair. I think so. I think it was a chair.

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“Guys, I can’t remember too well. Like, there’s a video of it, I’m sure, right? You know, I can’t remember too well. I just know I started raging.”

Local newspaper headlines declared “A foreign tourist lost his mind” and “Foreign tourist freaks out.” One news account says there were widespread reports of a tourist acting “without fear of the law” who didn’t explain “the reason or inspiration for this actions.”

There were no reported injuries in the Thailand case. Police found no drugs but 25 more rocks on his motorcycle after his arrest.

His Canadian passport had an entry visa for March 19, 2022 that expired on April 17, 2022. Local reports say he was being charged with being an illegal alien, trespassing at night, and damaging property.

It was notable locally not only for his strange behaviour but also as the first tourist incident since tourism resumed after COVID-19 restrictions.

• Email: ahumphreys@postmedia.com | X: AD_Humphreys with additional reporting from Sarah Grochowski, Vancouver Sun

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