The lights go out on Broadway

This page doesn't have so much of a point to make today as I do to relate what yesterday's shooting at Fortune Happiness Restaurant was like for me. While it may not be an incident that I had direct involvement with, it did take place only a few blocks from my home, where we caught the disturbing ripples of the violent splash made by the gunmen.

Because of the way the news broke, I left for work yesterday morning feeling confused, and to be honest, somewhat frightened. Living near East Broadway, I usually wake up at 4:00 - 4:30 AM to the sound of police sirens, but yesterday morning the chorus seemed a little louder than usual. The first report I saw (CBC Newsworld) said there had been a shooting in 'Downtown Vancouver', which led me to believe that it was another case of clubland posturing gone horribly wrong. The next report I saw (CKNW.com) said several people had been shot near Commercial Drive, which left me shaking as I headed out the door to work. For those of you outside the 604, Commercial Drive is central hub of Metro Vancouver's transit system: two Skytrain stations and the terminus of the crosstown 99B express bus line.

I didn't get another update until I made it to work, about 3 km away from home, and the crime scene. There were no buses heading west, and I saw the eastbound 99B being diverted south onto Kingsway. That aggravated my fear that a shooting had taken place at very crowded transit station. I walked as quickly as I could to the point of running, feeling that I needed to be high above the street in my office as quickly as possible, rather than being on the street looking up at the police helicopter directly over me that was looking for the two gunmen.

However, it was a pale sense of relief when I found out that it was Fortune Happiness where the shooting took place. Vancouver Police believe that the shooting is likely gang-related, and questioned the activities of the victims who were getting a bite to eat at 4:00 AM. With all due respect to Constable Chow, there are a lot of people doing things at 4:00 AM: janitors, security guards, convenience store clerks, taxi drivers, bartenders, bloggers drinking coffee, so I honestly don't know one's innocence should be shadowed by what time of day it is. The scary thing for me and my neighbours is that people were shot in our neighbourhood.

Mount Pleasant has come a long way, it's been at least two decades since the supermarket had a holding cell, there are far fewer shoes strung over telephone lines pointing to the crackhouses, and prostitution has moved further down Fraser Street or into the massage parlors and mini-brothels around the neighbourhood. Little kids play in Sahali Park without fear of more than getting pushed off the swings, and grown-ups can walk to work, the coffee shop, the market, and feel safe. Not as safe as I felt before yesterday's tragic step back, but still, safe.