VPD should have alerted public sooner about ‘serious’ Yaletown nightclub robbery: criminologist

A criminal justice expert is critical of the Vancouver Police Department’s decision not to notify the public about an armed robbery that left one person with “life-altering” injuries and six employees tied up at a Yaletown nightclub in April.

The VPD broke its silence on the holdup this week, more than three months after two suspects reportedly entered the club after hours, threatened employees with a gun, knife and forcibly confined the staff, stealing $25,000 in cash.

Robert Gordon, the former director of Simon Fraser University’s school of criminology, thinks Vancouver Police “used the wrong level of discretion” in not informing the public earlier.

“Investigators usually withhold information because they don’t want to alert suspects or scare off potential witnesses, but you’ve got individuals going into a nightclub, holding people up at knife- and gunpoint and scaring the living daylights out of them.”

Gordon says “such a serious event” warranted public know-about.