Police have filed murder charges against a man who was arrested at the scene after a car plowed into a crowd at a festival in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Saturday night, killing 11 people and injuring dozens of others.
Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, has been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder, Vancouver police said in a release Sunday evening.
“The charge assessment is ongoing and further charges are anticipated,” the police statement said.
At a news conference Sunday, authorities warned that the death toll may rise. The suspect, a Vancouver resident with a history of mental illness, was known to police. Officials confirmed the event is not an act of terrorism.
“It would appear that mental health appears to be the underlying issue here,” Mayor Ken Sim said at a news conference Sunday.
Police described the victims as “mixed genders, male, female and young people.” They are 5 to 65 years old, Steve Rai, Vancouver’s interim police chief, said Sunday.
More than two dozen more were injured in the attack, according to the police statement.
Rai said earlier Sunday that some of those people were injured critically and that some victims have still not been identified.
In graphic videos of the incident’s aftermath posted on social media and verified by NBC News, first responders and emergency vehicles tend to victims as onlookers appear distressed, crying and in shock.
What appears to be the vehicle, a crumpled black SUV, is seen stopped in the middle of the street after it crashed into food trucks that flanked both sides of a street that had been made into a pedestrian mall for what had been, just moments before, a joyous celebration of Filipino culture.
The ruins of damaged food trucks also appeared scattered across the area.
“Last night, as members of Vancouver’s Filipino community gathered for a celebration of community and culture in East Vancouver,” Rai said Sunday afternoon. “Their collective safety and security were stolen when a man in a vehicle drove through a festival.”
Police said the crowd, which had gathered for the annual Lapu-Lapu Day block party, captured the driver and turned him over to police.
Rai said police worked with the city to assess risks before Saturday's festival and found “no known threats to the event or to the Filipino community.”
As a result, Rai said, they determined that “dedicated police officers and heavy vehicle barricades” were not necessary at the festival site. He also said the police department and the city will work to review “all of the circumstances surrounding the planning of this event.”
More than 100 Vancouver police officers are working the case, Rai said.
The attack occurred on East 41st Avenue and Fraser Street shortly after 8:14 p.m. local time, police said on X.
Rai sidestepped questions Sunday about a possible motive except to say that “the person we have in custody does have a significant history of interactions with police and health care professionals related to mental health.”
He also said Sunday that police had not had any interactions with the suspect immediately leading up to Saturday night.
Yoseb Vardeh, a co-owner of a food truck that was stationed at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival, told the Vancouver Sun newspaper that he heard an engine revving before a speeding truck drove straight down the middle of a pedestrian-only area.
“I got outside my food truck, I looked down the road, and there’s just bodies everywhere,” Vardeh said.
He said police acted quickly to cordon off the area and arrest the man. “This is something that happens in the States, not here,” he said.
Victims were taken to nine hospitals, Rai said Sunday.
Deana Lancaster, a spokesperson for Vancouver General Hospital, the region’s top trauma facility, said it had received multiple patients from the incident, which she understood to be the Lapu-Lapu Day party.
Sim, the mayor, said earlier Sunday on social media, “I am shocked and deeply saddened by the horrific incident at today’s Lapu Lapu Day event.” He said more information would be coming as soon as it is available.
“Our thoughts are with all those affected and with Vancouver’s Filipino community during this incredibly difficult time,” Sim said.
British Columbia Premier David Eby said his team was in contact with Vancouver officials and would provide any needed support.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney offered condolences on X and said officials were monitoring the situation.
Addressing Canadians in a broadcast Sunday morning, Carney described the tragic losses “as every family’s nightmare.” He went on to highlight the resilience and strength of the Filipino Canadian community.
Carney referred to a Tagalog term that he said “captures the Filipino spirit of community of cooperation and unity.”
“And it’s this spirit upon which we must draw in this incredibly difficult time,” Carney said. “We will comfort the grieving. We will care for each other. We will unite in common purpose.”
Jagmeet Singh, the leader of Canada’s New Democrat Party, said on X that he was “horrified.”
“As we wait to learn more, our thoughts are with the victims and their families — and Vancouver’s Filipino community, who were coming together today to celebrate resilience,” he said.
In 2023, the province of British Columbia officially declared April 27 to be Lapu-Lapu Day, commemorating a battle on the island of Mactan, in what is now the Philippines, on April 27, 1521. Lapu-Lapu was an Indigenous leader who is widely credited, and celebrated, in the Philippines for killing Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer who landed in Mactan while he was helming a Spanish expedition to circumnavigate the globe.
The islands went on to fall under Spanish colonial rule for nearly 400 years, and Lapu-Lapu is hailed in the Philippines and the global Filipino diaspora as a symbol of resistance to colonialism.
There are nearly 1 million Filipino immigrants and people of Filipino descent in Canada, according to the 2021 census.
There will be a community gathering — where Sim will meet with the city’s Filipino community— and a vigil in Vancouver from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday local time.
