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Monday, June 30, 2025

11 killed as a vehicle plows into a Filipino street festival in Vancouver. Police rule out terrorism

by

Newsdesk
63 days ago
20250427
Vancouver Police survey the scene after a driver killed multiple people Saturday during a Filipino community festival Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Vancouver, British Columbia. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Vancouver Police survey the scene after a driver killed multiple people Saturday during a Filipino community festival Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Vancouver, British Columbia. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Lindsey Wasson

Van­cou­ver po­lice ruled out ter­ror­ism in a car ram­ming at­tack that killed 11 peo­ple at a Fil­ipino her­itage fes­ti­val in the Cana­di­an city, say­ing the sus­pect has a his­to­ry of men­tal health is­sues.

Dozens of oth­ers were in­jured, some se­ri­ous­ly, as the ram­ming shook the coun­try be­fore a fed­er­al elec­tion.

A man dri­ving a black Au­di SUV en­tered the street just af­ter 8 p.m. Sat­ur­day and struck peo­ple at­tend­ing the La­pu La­pu Day fes­ti­val. A Van­cou­ver man was ar­rest­ed.

“It is the dark­est day in Van­cou­ver’s his­to­ry,” Van­cou­ver Po­lice In­ter­im Chief Steve Rai told a news con­fer­ence.

“The per­son we have in cus­tody does have a sig­nif­i­cant his­to­ry of in­ter­ac­tions with po­lice and health care pro­fes­sion­als re­lat­ed to men­tal health,” he said.

Video of the af­ter­math shows the dead and in­jured along a nar­row street in South Van­cou­ver lined by food trucks. The front of the dri­ver’s SUV is smashed in.

Kris Pangili­nan, who brought his pop-up cloth­ing and lifestyle booth to the fes­ti­val, saw the ve­hi­cle en­ter past the bar­ri­cade slow­ly be­fore the dri­ver slammed on the gas in an area that was packed with peo­ple af­ter a con­cert. He said hear­ing the sounds of bod­ies hit­ting the ve­hi­cle will nev­er leave his mind.

“He side­swiped some­one on his right side and I was like, ‘Oh, yo yo.’ And then he slammed on the gas,” he said. “And the sound of the ac­cel­er­a­tion, it sounds like an F1 car about to start a race.

“He slammed on the gas, bar­reled through the crowd. And all I can re­mem­ber is see­ing bod­ies fly­ing up in the air high­er than the food trucks them­selves and land­ing on the ground and peo­ple yelling and scream­ing. It looked like a bowl­ing ball hit­ting bowl­ing pins and all the pins are fly­ing in­to the air.”

Pangili­nan said that it would be hard to be­lieve “that some­one has some mal­ice against the Fil­ipino peo­ple.”

Sus­pect was de­tained by by­standers be­fore the po­lice ar­rived

A 30-year-old Van­cou­ver man was ar­rest­ed at the scene. Rai said that the man was ar­rest­ed af­ter ini­tial­ly be­ing ap­pre­hend­ed by by­standers.

Video cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia shows a young man in a black hood­ie with his back against a chain-link fence, along­side a se­cu­ri­ty guard and sur­round­ed by by­standers scream­ing and swear­ing at him.

“I’m sor­ry,” the man says, hold­ing his hand to his head.

Rai de­clined to com­ment on the video.

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