Dharm Makwana

Vancouver Deputy Chief Doug LePard's comments on questions raised during a debriefing on Monday about policing and police tactics during the Vancouver 2010 Games.

On protesters:

“First real challenge came on opening night when 1,500 protesters tested the police line outside B.C. Place. I can tell you now that really was our most tense moment. The criminal element within that protest group threw everything at us they could get their hands on. When they ran out of things to throw at us they spit on us. Through it all the blue line held and no one was hurt.”

"There were those who seemed surprised by our approach but they can be forgiven ince the fear-mongers and critics tried their best to convince the public that the massive police presence would lead to massive abuses and police brutality – even suggesting we would employ sonic canons. As we said then, how ridiculous.”

On perceived threats:

“The biggest threat that we had, I think, was just the incredible numbers of people we had compressed into a fairly small area of downtown. No one, I think, could’ve predicted we would see 130,000 or more people in the few blocks around Robson and Granville.”

On crowd control:

“My biggest worry was that I was going to see a pedestrian be struck by a car.”

“We weren’t going to make that same mistake twice (referring to 1994 Stanley Cup riots). There was an incredible amount of liquor that was not drunk either because it wasn’t purchased or because we poured it out.”

“I’m drawn back to reading again, the B.C. Police Commission’s report on the Stanley Cup riot in which they said if you’re going to err, it should be on the side of having more police officers not less.”

On surveillance cameras:

“I’m not sure how much of a factor that was. That’s sort of a difficult thing to analyze. I think people tend to forget about [surveillance cameras], not your sophisticated criminal they don’t forget about them, but your people who are just getting intoxicated and partying, I don’t think they’re thinking about that very much.”

“As a crowd management tool though it was a very powerful tool for our people working in the department’s operations centre because they could radio. Being on the ground you could only see a small piece of what’s going on and we would get reports from the operations centre who could look anywhere with the video, and say hey look, there’s a problem developing here.”

“The cameras were incredibly useful to us in terms of crime management.”

“That’s up to the city. The surveillance cameras were installed by the ISU and I know there are discussions with the city on whether or not they would be retained. We’ve been pretty clear that we would like to see cameras in the entertainment district but that is really an issue for the city to deal with. We’re not actively involved in those discussions right now.”