{"id":48187,"date":"2025-04-28T20:35:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T00:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/despair-blankets-scene-of-car-ramming-attack-at-festival\/28\/04\/2025\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T20:35:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T00:35:56","slug":"despair-blankets-scene-of-car-ramming-attack-at-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/despair-blankets-scene-of-car-ramming-attack-at-festival\/28\/04\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Despair Blankets Scene of Car-Ramming Attack at Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On any ordinary day, the South Vancouver neighborhood bustles with the sounds of life, but Saturday was no ordinary day. It was a celebration of Filipino culture, and music from a live concert echoed through the streets as families lined up at food trucks and children played.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Sunday it was strangely silent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt gives me chills,\u201d said Franchesca Gabo, taking it all in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Gabo, 20, left the festival shortly before a driver rammed his SUV into the mass of people, killing 11 and injuring more than 30.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now, she had come back, joining an impromptu vigil of people peering over police tape and trying in vain to absorb the enormity of what had happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt was a happy day yesterday,\u201d Ms. Gabo said. \u201cEveryone was celebrating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The authorities say the motive for the attack did not appear to be terrorism. But beyond that little had emerged about the suspect in custody other than that he is a 30-year-old man with a history of mental illness. Now, he is charged with murder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More was becoming known about the victims at the festival celebrating Lapu Lapu Day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The youngest was Katie Le, a 5-year-old girl who was killed along with her parents, Richard Le, 47, and Linh Hoang, 30, according to local news reports. Mr. Le\u2019s 16-year-old son, Andy, survived because of a last-minute decision to skip the festival in favor of homework, relatives said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A school board in a nearby suburb said that a guidance counselor named Kira Salim was also among the dead. \u201cThe loss of our friend and colleague has left us all shocked and heartbroken,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And fund-raising began to help people wounded in the attack and repatriate the remains of at least one victim who was killed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">More than 960,000 people in Canada are of Filipino descent, according to the government, with about half living in Vancouver, Toronto and Calgary. In June 2023, a government report made note of Filipinos\u2019 robust representation in the trades, health care, service and business administration sectors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cFilipino Canadians are among the hardest working people in Canada,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Many made it to Canada via foreign worker programs, including a live-in caregiver program that ran between 1992 and 2014 and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/torontolife.com\/city\/toronto-filipino-caregiver-nanny-diaries\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">helped resettle<\/a> about 75,000 Filipinos.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Angelo Cruz, who grew up in the neighborhood where the festival took place, said Monday that his mother, despite having a master\u2019s degree in science, worked as a nanny until she could gain residency and help the rest of her family immigrate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cYou make that sacrifice, you let go of potentially raising your own child, because you want your child to have a better life,\u201d Mr. Cruz said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But Lapu Lapu Day is meant to be a break from all that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt was the one time we wanted to express ourselves and have fun \u2014 and we couldn\u2019t even get that,\u201d said Mr. Cruz, a human resources administrator who grew up in the community where the festival was held. \u201cThat was heartbreaking for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The edge of the neighborhood was decorated with bunting in yellow, navy blue, white and red, the national colors of the Philippines, though the streets are lined by a mix of businesses and restaurants offering not just Filipino but also Vietnamese, Chinese and Indian food.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Sunday, Mr. Cruz and his family stepped out of Pin Pin, a restaurant serving up his traditional favorites like pancit palabok, a garlic noodle and shrimp dish, and the Filipino spring rolls known as lumpia. Then they headed toward the vigil sites.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At one of them, Arturo Macapagal, an operating room nurse who is often in the neighborhood took a moment to say a quiet prayer, joined by a priest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cAnytime you\u2019re gathering, especially the Filipino community, it\u2019s about food and happiness and joy and laughter and the camaraderie,\u201d Mr. Macapagal said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When Prime Minister Mark Carney came to pay his respects, the crowd erupted into \u201cAmazing Grace.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Amid the mourning, life went on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Music blasted on the street from Proud Pinoy Grocery Store, a hub for specialty food products. Shoppers browsed shelves carrying dried fish called tuyo, heavy sacks of jasmine rice and sweet corn chips. A poster advertising the Lapu Lapu Day festival was still taped to door.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/28\/world\/canada\/vancouver-festival-attack.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On any ordinary day, the South Vancouver neighborhood bustles with the sounds of life, but Saturday was no ordinary day. It was<br \/><button class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/despair-blankets-scene-of-car-ramming-attack-at-festival\/28\/04\/2025\/\">Read More &rsaquo;<\/a><\/button><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/28\/multimedia\/28int-canada-vancouver-attack-kwvc\/28int-canada-vancouver-attack-kwvc-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48187"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}