On a warm evening last week, a 15-year-old Coquitlam boy was playing basketball with two of his cousins when a group of older youths cornered and bear sprayed them.
On Monday, Owen Kindopp was playing basketball with three friends in South Surrey when two strangers waved a gun, stole their bags, and unleashed bear spray before running away.
These are the latest in a string of attacks involving bear spray around Metro Vancouver. It’s not known if the same suspects are involved, but videos of the attacks are appearing on a local Instagram page afterward.
Two of the latest victims are speaking out in the hopes that the attackers will be caught — and no one else will be hurt.
The parents of the boy from Coquitlam spotted a video of his attack after he’d come home. The family asked to keep the boy’s name confidential.
He was playing basketball at Lower Lougheed Park around 8 pm on August 1 when a group of people, who appeared to be in their late teens, blocked both entrances to the court. They had a baton with them and began smacking it on the floor.
One of the attackers accused the three cousins of “talking smack” about his girl, which confused the boys. The attacker then asked the boys to look at something on his phone, but as they approached he sprayed two of them in the face with bear spray.
“They’re complete strangers. We have no idea who they are. Just guys looking for trouble is what it seems like,” the boy’s 18-year-old brother told Daily Hive.
The three boys ran away after being sprayed. The two who had been hit, and whose eyes were burning, knocked on the door of a nearby house and the helpful resident let them wash off inside. The third cousin ran home to tell the family what had happened.
“I definitely don’t want to see these guys going out and doing this to another family or other people. It’s definitely scary,” the elder brother said.
Lower Lougheed Park (Google Street View)
The family called the police, but officers apparently told them the video quality may be too poor to identify the suspects. Const. Deanna Law with Coquitlam RCMP confirmed there’s an active investigation into the incident, but would not answer Daily Hive’s questions or provide additional details.
The basketball court at Ray Shepherd Elementary (Google Street View)
A week after the Coquitlam incident, Kindopp was also confronted by bear-spray-wielding strangers while playing basketball at Ray Shepherd Elementary in South Surrey.
It happened on August 7 just before 11:30 pm, Kindopp told Daily Hive. The two people, whom he estimated to be in their late teens, entered the basketball court wearing balaclavas and brandishing what appeared to be a gun.
“They were both screaming to give them all our stuff,” Kindopp said.
After the thieves took a backpack and a power bank, the friends began to back away — that’s when the attackers sprayed them before running away themselves.
“It was completely unprovoked,” Kindopp said. “They just unloaded the mace can into [my friend’s] face.”
Kindopp thought the weapon may have been a modified airsoft gun since it sounded like it was made of plastic when the attacker tried to cock it. He also questioned why they’d bring bear spray if they had a real gun — but he didn’t want to take any chances.
The group knocked on nearby doors until someone let them in to wash the bear spray out of their eyes, and police arrived on the scene within minutes. A K-9 unit searched the neighbourhood for the suspects, but couldn’t find them.
Cpl. Vanessa Munn with Surrey RCMP said the investigation into the incident is ongoing, and there’s no information yet to suggest it’s linked to any other bear spray incidents in the Lower Mainland.
“It’s definitely left me wondering, like, do I want to go out at night again?” Kindopp said. “There’s four of us who got robbed, so I don’t know about the whole safety in numbers thing. It doesn’t do a whole lot when they’re armed.”
He added someone may have filmed the attack because he noticed a light similar to a phone flashlight as the attack took place. Video hasn’t appeared online yet, but he’s keeping an eye out.
The Coquitlam boy’s family found the video of his attack shared on @cancouver_beefs. The owner of the account, however, claimed they weren’t involved in the assaults, and only post videos that are sent to them anonymously.
The account is on its third iteration after its first two got shut down by Instagram.
After Daily Hive published this story, woman emailed in saying she screen-recorded the video. It was initially uploaded to Instagram by user @yvng.laith.
“I don’t know him personally, but I know mutual followers of him… I recorded it because I thought it was horrible,” she said.
His Instagram story of the boys being sprayed was followed by a second clip of someone spraying a SkyTrain passenger.
Daily Hive has reached out to Metro Vancouver Transit Police for more details.
Although bear spray attacks have been reported around the Lower Mainland this spring and summer, no police force has confirmed the attacks are related.
The Vancouver Police Department responded to an attack in Kitsilano on July 30 where two men were bear sprayed while walking home. The group of youths who harassed them fled, and no arrests have been made.
VPD said it didn’t believe the problem was widespread at the time.
Bear spray was also unleashed inside Killarney Secondary School in June when two teens who didn’t attend the school apparently tried to assault a male student.
Back in May, a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old were arrested after a father and son were bear sprayed near Nanaimo Station.
The sale of bear spray is controlled in BC, and customers must produce a government-issued photo ID that shows they’re over 18 when purchasing it.
With files from Daily Hive’s Amir Ali
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