Man crashes children's party in Vancouver over music complaints

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A confrontation at a children’s party in a Vancouver park is raising safety concerns after a man crashed the event, allegedly because he took issue with the music.

Rachel Beau was hired to DJ the event as part of a back-to-school celebration at David Lam Park on September 21 and said they had a permit to have the afternoon dance party on the lawn.

She says dozens of people, including lots of children from the nearby school, were in attendance when a man stormed the gathering and demanded they turn off the music.

“All of a sudden, I just saw out of the corner of my eye, somebody running at me…and all of a sudden I just see someone ram the speaker, a huge power speaker,” she said.

The children narrowly avoided getting hit when the speaker tumbled down.

“He just started kicking the speaker,” Beau said, describing the man as a senior and that he appeared to also take issue with what he believed was a religious gathering.

“There’s kids crying, there’s kids screaming,” she said. “He lunged at me with a fist.”

While shaken, Beau was uninjured, and her first concern was the kids.

“There’s lots of these things happening in our city, unpredictable things, and the one thing that was going through my mind was here, I am being this, you know, positive motivator for all of these kids and families and teachers, and I get knocked in the face or something, you know, it’s just would have been, could have been a lot more chaotic than it was.

“Luckily, parents stepped in. And he got taken back. I was shaking so much. I was so terrified because he was pretty aggressive. It was pretty scary, to be honest.”

Several people claim the man lives nearby in a condo.

Beau’s friend Alexandera Michalchuk was at the event as well, as she had spotted Beau DJ-ing while she was out rollerblading on the seawall that afternoon. She was able to film moments after the confrontation and the crowd telling the man to leave the area.

Daily Hive has blurred the video for privacy reasons.

Michalchuk was unable to film the full interactions but says the man also threatened them.

“If you don’t turn down the music, I’m going to beat the shit out of you,” she said he had yelled.

“He was acting completely outrageous,” she added.

“I thought he might hit me, it was super scary. But I felt like I had to stand up for my community,” she said.

“It was traumatic. I was shaking,” Michalchuk said.

“I stood there for 45 minutes until the cops came…[and] the cops that I was talking to seemed like they literally didn’t want to do anything about it, and I was pretty outraged by that because crime rates have skyrocketed in the city,” she said, adding that she was concerned the man being a repeat offender, but Daily Hive was not able to confirm the allegation.

“I feel like the Yaletown vigilante…this city is getting so unsafe.”

Vancouver police confirmed they responded; however, they did not identify the man, and Daily Hive is unable to verify if there were previous offences or if there were concerns about mental health.

“Yes, we are investigating an incident at a park a week ago. A suspect was arrested; however, charges have not been recommended at this time.”

“The file still remains under investigation,” VPD public affairs Const. Tania Visintin said.

Beau is still thinking about the next steps and will be following up with police.

“It could have been so many different layers to what that person was experiencing. But it is just something to, like, really think about the safety of other performers and other people who are doing these things and the safety of the community as well. So that has definitely felt a little bit of fear inside right now,” she said.

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With files from Megan Devlin