An Abbotsford, B.C., police officer who found himself surrounded during the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver wants to find the Good Samaritans who stood between him and the angry crowd.
Const. Steve Kern, of the Abbotsford Police Department, says he felt a pang of fear unlike anything he'd experienced during 19 years on the job when he realized he'd become separated from his fellow officers as the mayhem erupted in downtown Vancouver on June 15.
"When they started yelling profanities at me and being confrontational and aggressive, at that point I was thinking, 'Well, things could go very badly here,"' Kern said Monday.
He was deployed to the downtown area with a team of three other officers as part of a larger crowd control unit when things turned ugly.
He said the medic in the group was called away, leaving three officers at a busy intersection where a group of people approached them about an unconscious man down the street.
As Kern and his two fellow officers arrived at the scene, three nurses and a doctor were helping the injured man as more and more people began to gather and the chaos mounted.
Two of the officers with Kern left to assist another man who had been stabbed.
Officer became crowd's target
People began bumping and jostling the nurses and doctor to try and get a picture of themselves with the injured man on the ground, he said. As Kern tried to control the crowd, he became a target.
"They were saying all sorts of profanities directed toward the police department and they were accusatory of us having tear-gassed them. And they were descending on my position as if they were going to physically cause me harm," he said in a telephone interview.
When police started deploying pepper spray to try to disperse the crowd, Kern said he did not have a mask and that the violence against him was inevitable.
That's when three people, including a husband and wife, and a large, muscular man stepped forward and formed a wall around the injured man and Kern himself.
"It was a point of relief when the nice civilians came in from the side, saying, `Leave the police officer alone, he's trying to do his job," he said.
Kern said the couple, who were between 25 and 30, then left to try and find more police officers, leaving the muscular man to help him.
"(He) came in and said, `If you want to get to the police officer you're going to have to get through me,"' he said.
Kern and the Abbotsford Police Department want to thank the seven heroes who saved him and helped the injured man.
He said the muscular man appeared to be Asian and in his mid-20s. He said he doesn't recall many details about the others, but the woman in the couple may have had curly red hair.
Kern and the Abbotsford Police Department would like the trio, along with the nurses and doctor, to come forward so they can thank them.
Police have said that about 150,000 people were in the downtown core during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final, when the Vancouver Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins.
About 150 people were injured and there was millions of dollars in damage when windows were smashed and stores were looted in the ensuing riot.
Police Chief Jim Chu originally blamed the riot on instigators and criminals who showed up with weapons and explosive devices with the intention of starting a riot, but later blamed much of the damage on people with no prior police record.
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