When I read that a Vancouver Police spokesman told reporters that Tyson Edwards had been “rushed†to hospital after being stabbed around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 1, I thought of a man collecting beer bottles and cans that night who tells a different story.
Roughly ten days after 21 year old Tyson Edwards, who was becoming a dog-trainer like his father who has worked with the dogs of Marilyn Manson and Sheryl Crow, was stabbed to death outside Richards on Richards nightclub in Vancouver, I heard Jim A. talking about how the cops hadn’t seemed too interested.  â€Are you talking about that young Black guy who got stabbed?â€, I asked Jim when I overheard his conversation in the Carnegie Library on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.  I had seen the victim’s mother on the front page of the Vancouver Sun pleading for witnesses to come forward, and his father who had come up from Los Angeles standing in the background. “He was Black or East Indian,†Jim said, “It happened two weekends ago; there’s a memorial outside Richards on Richards.† He was talking about Tyson Edwards.
Jim, a thin white guy in his fifties, who unlike some Downtown Eastsiders doesn’t make a habit of criticizing police, had been walking around downtown collecting empty beer cans and bottles.  He arrived at Richards on Richards just after Edwards was stabbed.  “I saw him lying in the curb,” says Jim, who didn’t witness the actual stabbing. There were no police or other emergency workers there yet.  â€I felt for the guy…As soon as I saw him, I could see he needed an ambulance.  â€Take it easyâ€, Jim said to Edwards and then went for help. “The first thing on my mind was the guy needed an ambulanceâ€.  As Jim walked away, he heard somebody yelling, “He’s dying, he’s dying.†                                                                                 Â
Jim told the doorman at Richards on Richards that there was a man who needed an ambulance.  â€I told the door man, the Black door man, he was the first one I told,†Jim says.  â€He just ignored me.â€
Then a cop pulled up and I said, ‘This guy needs an ambulance, he’s been stabbed in the chest and he’s bleeding; they [the people with Edwards] rolled him over, he needs an ambulance right now’.† Jim dipped his hand into his pocket to imitate the constable’s response: “He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his radio and says, ‘I need back up.’ And he puts the radio back in his pocket.† He didn’t call for an ambulance.
“I was kind of frantic to get an ambulance right away”, Jim says.
Jim went up to another white male cop, “a big, bald, guy†who had just arrived, and told him that there was a guy over there that needed an ambulance right away, that he’d been stabbed in the chest.  “He friggin’ ignored me,” Jim says.
Next Jim approached a white female cop who was talking to a civilian male.  He believes she was either checking the man’s ID or searching him; Jim couldn’t remember exactly. He told her that there was a guy over there who needed an ambulance right away, that he had been stabbed in the chest.  But she, like the male cops, ignored him. “She was more interested in crowd controlâ€, Jim said in a disgusted tone of voice.
“I told at least three cops and none of them paid any attentionâ€, Jim says.  He was clearly still upset.  I heard him telling his story to friends on three separate occasions.
Maybe somebody had already called 911 and the police knew that an ambulance was on the way, I said.  Jim replied that he had noticed people with cell phones but, based on his estimation that “15 to 20 minutes†passed before an ambulance arrived, he speculates that they may have asked for police, not an ambulance.  â€It took so dammed long for the ambulance to get there, I couldn’t believe it.â€
He said there is a building just a few blocks from there where ambulances are dispatched and he believes he could have walked over there, gotten hold of some ambulance attendants and walked back, and “would have been there faster than the ambulance.† [Ambulance paramedics recently threatened to strike, one of their grievances being that ambulance response times are becoming slower.]
Regardless of whether an ambulance was in transit, Jim believes police should have checked on Edwards right away, after being told that he had been stabbed and needed immediate medical help.  He says Edwards was obscured from the view of police by “a crowd of Black guys standing around him.â€
Jim was amazed at the amount of back-up that arrived for police.  â€I’ve seen back up before but I’ve never seen so much back-up. There were cop cars everywhere, lights flashing, paddy wagons, but no ambulance.â€Jim was “perturbed†by the conduct of police as the victim lay bleeding on the curb and would later mention it to a journalist at the scene.  â€I told the CBC guy about it and he just laughed.  I said, ‘It’s not funny, a guy lost his life’.â€
Jim readily acknowledges that he’d had a bit to drink that night. “But I wasn’t drunk,†he says.  When he’s picking cans and bottles on weekends, he explains, it’s common to find a half empty mickey or bottle of wine that bar-goers have left in an alley or parking lot.  He generally sips on one while he walks around picking cans.  Jim has lived on the Downtown Eastside for 30 years and he is known as a guy who enjoys going to the Pacific or the Regent Hotel to drink beer. But he is not known to get aggressive or nasty when he drinks.  And he’s not a drug user; he even hates marijuana.
Before the ambulance arrived, Jim left the scene and walked around the block picking up more cans and bottles.  When he passed by Richards on Richards again, he saw that the ambulance had arrived.  â€The ambulance was there; it was behind yellow tapeâ€, he said in a low voice.
There’s an old TV show in which each episode ends with a male voice saying, “There are eight million stories in the naked city, you’ve just heard one of them.†There are also millions of sides to those stories.  You’ve just heard one of them.
Jane is a contributor to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer
4 users commented in " Man Collecting Beer Cans says Police Ignored Stabbing Victim Dying on Street "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackSooner or later people will realize that the police have been militarized (and not just in the US) and are more concerned with generating revenue for the city and protecting the elite. We are the useless eaters that they know are soon to be carted off to camps when the economy goes in the dumper (and that’s been a planned event too). I know no one’s going to believe this until the boot goes through their own door. Until then, keep your faith in yourself, I wouldn’t call a cop to walk my dog these days.
wow…the first concern should have been this mans life..i understand the reason for backup, but a ambulance should have been called right away…seems like people are losing site of whats really important…peoples lifes1
Re: “janefromvancouver” blog, This blogger’s story is both fraudulent and irresponsible. Jane recites her interview with “Jim A.” as if she had recorded and then transcribed, word for word, what “Jim” told her, stating: “I heard him telling this story to friends on three separate occasions.” Oh really? On what occaisions would Jane have been present to hear Jim reccount his story three times? According to Jane, Jim, who was “…frantic to get an ambulance right away,” went from cop to cop, advising them to call an ambulance, but was ignored. Later (Jane explains further) Jim apparently described the incident to a CBC journalist who “…just laughed.” The truth, Jane should know, is that both police and ambulances were called immediately…by the same “black guys standing around” that “Jim” describes. Ty was not alone when he was killed; the street was filled with crowds pouring out of Richards on Richards that night. One of the cops who happened to attend at the scene that night was, in fact, a family friend. The writer of this reply, as well as Ty’s mother, were extremely distressed to find and read janesfromvancouver’s false account of what actually occurred; not only because it’s based on a second-hand account from a miscellaneous passer-by who admittedly had “a few drinks,” and who bore no witness to the incident, but also because Jane does not take into consideration the weight of her words or how they might affect family and friends who happen across her blog.
ilovetysonedwards,
I think the words like “fraudulent” and “false account” apply to you, not me.
You lie by omission in the following statement:
“Jane recites her interview with ‘Jim A.’ as if she had recorded and then transcribed, word for word, what ‘Jim’ told her, stating: ‘I heard him telling this story to friends on three separate occasions.’ “
It was clear in the article that I interviewed Jim A., in addition to hearing him tell his story to other people. Yet you portray me as having relied exclusively on hearsay in writing the article.
Then you completely concoct a quote — “a few drinks” — and falsely attribute it to Jim, in order to strengthen your case.
You seem to ignore the fact that I closed the article by acknowledging that Jim’s account is just “one” amongst many. As any lawyer will tell you, it is not uncommon for eye-witness accounts to differ. It doesn’t mean that anyone is providing a “false account”.
You dismiss Jim as a “miscellaneous passer-by”. But he did stop. He stopped because he cared about whether the young man lived or died.
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