Editor:
In the movie Rudy, there is a scene where head coach Dan Devine, played by Chelcie Ross, gives the Norte Dame football team a pre-game speech. The essence of his speech is echoed in the words, "No one, and I mean no one, comes into our house and pushes us around."
Recently, the Vancouver Canucks and the City of Vancouver allowed someone to come into our house and push us around. Both have to get tough and they have to get mean now.
The Canucks have to recognize they have to be a team that will not be pushed around and to start showing some emotion by pushing back.
The police recognized a group of anarchists downtown as the same group that rioted during the Winter Olympics but had to wait until it was too late. They say they could do little to prevent "criminals, anarchists and thugs" from instigating the riot. Well, maybe they should have applied some street justice to these idiots, but then everyone would cry police brutality. It's a no-win situation for Vancouver's finest.
Since the parents of the rioters, who probably attended the 1994 riot, seem unwilling to do so, we need to straighten out the punks and anarchists. They need to be held accountable for their actions and made to pay for all the damage they caused. They must be convicted and sent to prison.
However, due to our soft judicial system the rioters will probably get little more than a slap on the wrist. Their lawyers will challenge every aspect of evidence as they prepare their defence.
Just once it would be nice if the lawyer looked at his client, looked at the picture of his client's hooligan behaviour and then advised his client to plead guilty, simply because the client is guilty and the lawyer knows it.
Once the case gets to court and the riotous hooligan pleads guilty, the judge should impose a lengthy prison sentence or the judge and lawyer should go down and help clean up after the next riot.
When are we going to accept and understand these people do not care and they know they will get away with all of their criminal activity? If we don't change the system now, like history, it will repeat itself.
Only it will get worse!
Ray Crawford
