Three People Stabbed at Festival in Chinatown
Photo Credit: Eric Schmidt/Penticton Now
Around 6:00 PM on Sept. 10, a stabbing incident occurred at Vancouver's Light Up Chinatown Festival. The incident left three festival-goers injured.
The victims included a man and a woman in their 60s from Burnaby, as well as a woman in her early 20s from Vancouver. All three received serious, but non-life-threatening, injuries. The suspect, 64-year-old Blair Evan Donnelly, was arrested just minutes after the attack. The Vancouver Police has stated that the assaults were carried out by a stranger who had no association with the victims.
According to Global News, in November 2006, Donnelly stabbed his 16-year-old daughter. During the court proceedings against him, he claimed to have received instructions from God to commit this act against his daughter. He was eventually declared medically unfit and was confined at Colony Farm, a renowned forensic psychiatric hospital in Port Coquitlam, for a period of time.
Donnelly displayed psychotic symptoms, having received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. He has previously struggled with substance abuse, which is currently in remission. Documents from April obtained by Global News from the British Columbia Review Board described Donnelly as “a significant threat“ with a “high risk of relapsing”. The review board found that the only suitable placement for Donnelly would be in a hospital, to ensure sufficient monitoring. On the day of the stabbing, Donnelly was granted an unsupervised day pass. The reasoning behind this day pass remains unclear.
In 2009, another undisclosed case sent Donnelly back to court. A 2011 report by the Vancouver Sun highlighted that Donnelly had been granted unsupervised community visits of up to 28 days, during which he stabbed a friend. Other cases involved Donnelly stabbing a man and assaulting another patient with a butter knife.
An active investigation is underway. But the motive behind the Sept. 10 incident remains a mystery. Given that all the victims were Asian, Chief Constable Adam Palmer of the Vancouver Police Department has not ruled out the possibility of a hate crime, since there has been a surge in anti-Asian hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Light Up Chinatown Festival was meant to be a celebration of the vibrant community, drawing tens of thousands of attendees. Festival organisers expressed their shock and devastation over the attack. They emphasized that it was an event designed to bring the community together and showcase Chinatown's progress.