Canada - Car drove into a crowd during a festival, multiple people killed, driver is in custody, Vancouver, BC, 26 Apr 2025

[DS2021]

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.7521867

A mental health team was overseeing the man charged with murder in connection with a horrific incident at a Vancouver street festival Saturday that left 11 people dead and many more wounded, according to B.C.'s Ministry of Health.

In a statement released Tuesday, a spokesperson for the ministry said Kai-Ji Adam Lo was under the care of Vancouver Coastal Health's mental health team and was "being supervised under the Mental Health Act" at the time of the tragedy

"The individual was being followed closely by his care team. VCH will continue to review the file, but at this time, the best known information at VCH is that there was no indication of violence in this individual's presentation to the VCH team," the statement said.

"To the care team's knowledge, there was no recent change in his condition or noncompliance with his treatment plan that would've warranted him needing to be hospitalized involuntarily

 

[Charlot123]

Replying to myself. I meant you can't force someone to take medication.

But we also can’t live in the time when we are afraid to walk out of the house or go to a movie theater. Yes, mentally ill people have the right to choose between treatment or no treatment. They have the right to choose between different medications, too.

But these 11 victims had the right to be alive… And what about the people who became invalids due to Lo’s act?

We are talking about homicides but how many suicides happen, too, exactly for the same reason? Maybe mentally people themselves have the right to be supported and helped to stay alive, till they get better?

There are injectable medications for conditions like Kevin Lo probably has. They are costly, but if the society calculates all that it costs us to deal with the consequences of mass murders like this…maybe it is not so much. There is Vivitrol, injectable Naltrexone for opiate addicts. Maybe it is also not too much if all the cost of fentanyl epidemic is calculated.

I think that if Lo was on extended leave from the hospital, the staff considered him to be safe. If he turned into unsafe so rapidly, one of the two must have happened, he stopped his meds or used street substances on top of his meds, or, more likely, both. JMO.

 

[branmuffin]

But we also can’t live in the time when we are afraid to walk out of the house or go to a movie theater. Yes, mentally ill people have the right to choose between treatment or no treatment. They have the right to choose between different medications, too.

But these 11 victims had the right to be alive… And what about the people who became invalids due to Lo’s act?

We are talking about homicides but how many suicides happen, too, exactly for the same reason? Maybe mentally people themselves have the right to be supported and helped to stay alive, till they get better?

There are injectable medications for conditions like Kevin Lo probably has. They are costly, but if the society calculates all that it costs us to deal with the consequences of mass murders like this…maybe it is not so much. There is Vivitrol, injectable Naltrexone for opiate addicts. Maybe it is also not too much if all the cost of fentanyl epidemic is calculated.

I think that if Lo was on extended leave from the hospital, the staff considered him to be safe. If he turned into unsafe so rapidly, one of the two must have happened, he stopped his meds or used street substances on top of his meds, or, more likely, both. JMO.

Every person with mental health issues aren't prospective killers. If anything else, they are more likely to commit suicide than hurt others. People in the throws of a mental health crisis are more likely to get killed by LE who aren't trained to deal with people in crises mode. More people get killed by drunk drivers than people who go off their meds. Do we force alcoholics or binge drinkers to stop drinking on the supposition they may get in a car and kill someone? No we don't because you cannot anticipate or predict the actions of an individual.

This happened in Canada, a country that already has health care available to those in need. You can't force people to take medicines that are 'good' for them, regardless of the diagnosis. Unless you want to live in a police state.

This guy had a home with parents who cared about him. He wasn't a homeless person wandering the streets. Many homeless people have mental health issues, including those who are military veterans. If those people fall through the cracks, who's responsible for that?

I knew this guy who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was a brilliant person. Everything he tried his hand at, he excelled in. The one thing he didn't excel in was understanding that his illness ebbed and flowed and the way to control it was to be drugged to stupefaction where he lost himself in the treatment of the disease. He tried about 16 times to kill himself. His parents were very wealthy and they sent him to so many places to try and get his illness under control. In his own country and others. He was a musical guy and he asked his mom to send him his guitars while he was in a facility somewhere in New England. The first thing he did when he got them was to try and hang himself with the strings. That was when he was taking his meds. So meds aren't the panacea you think they are. He finally succeeded when he took a bus from the Queen St mental health facility in Toronto up to the Ossington subway station and jumped in front of a train. He was 26 years old. Unfortunately, that is far more common result for a person with mental health issues than the outcome in Vancouver.