Sgt. Steve Addison with the Vancouver Police Department said five victims were taken to hospital in two separate and unrelated incidents. Police believe the weekend stabbings were targeted and followed earlier clashes between the same groups of people. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said police would be on patrol Monday night and “strictly enforce,” particularly in entertainment areas. “What we’ve seen around Halloween are drunken idiots, to put it bluntly, who have had too much to drink and are fighting each other.” “The police will be out in full force and will have zero tolerance for this type of behaviour.” Police say they responded to a triple stabbing at a bar at West Broadway and Oak Street around 1:30 a.m. Sunday. The victims were three men in their 20s who had come to town from White Rock for a birthday party. One person was taken to hospital and released, but two were more seriously injured and remain in care. Police said that less than an hour later, officers patrolling the city center intervened in a large fight between two groups on Granville Street that left two men in their 20s with stab wounds to the face, hands and torso. Addison noted that the weekend before Halloween is always busy, and the stabbings stretched their resources. Police said the perpetrators in the first case fled and have not identified any suspects in the second. Other incidents this weekend included a 20-year-old Surrey man who was slashed in the face near Granville Street after he tried to intervene in a stranger-to-stranger fight by threatening a man with a knife in Chinatown, police said.
