Hitting close to home :(

[Delphinus]

Forgive me for this offtopic post but this is the closest brush with this sort of thing for me yet. I just need to get this off my chest.

Not only is this my favourite restaurant, I had just had lunch there. Any other day of the week this would have been packed with my coworkers as it is one of the best Vietnamese soup around (my personal favourite), and it's right by my office, and the owners are the sweetest people you'll ever meet. I take my kids to this restaurant. I take my cats to the vetrinarian next door.

And now three people are dead, shot while dining inside.

Words cannot express my profound sadness and confusion at this moment in time.

My heart goes out to the owners of the restaurant. They are the sweetest people you could ever meet and they came to Canada presumably trying to find a better life for their family.

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/loc...ub=CalgaryHome

[fishoholic]

Wow, that's disturbing, sorry to hear about it.

[workn2hard2day]

wow, that is too close to home. I think he police always try to make us fell better by saying it was a targeted attack.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Man thats rough...This kind of thing seems to happen way too often (at least here in Vancouver) but never at a place I have been to or would go. That would hit close to home.

I agree that the police like to make it sound better by saying it was a targeted hit. I know this is not always the case because my moms best friends son was gunned down last year in Vancouver and the police called it a hit and gang related...the kid was a student at Interior design school and certainly not a gangster! He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time with his friends. His poor mom was devastated of course but to hear her son being called a gang member on top of that was ridiculous. Sorry off topic but I just agree with the above.

[Delphinus]

There's definitely a backstory of some kind here, whether it's gangs or drugs they don't really know though. This is a family run restaurant. I eat there at least once a week for lunch, sometimes twice. To have masked gunmen burst into a restaurant and start shooting doesn't really sound like a random to me. If it truly is random then there's something far scarier going on.

[Lydia]

I'm sorry to hear this, too

The increase in violence is freaking me out, and I'm terrified of being caught in the cross fire. I live in Airdrie, but work downtown, and 2 of my kids go to school in Calgary. One day while picking my son up after school (he's bused to my Mom's in Connaught), there was a home invasion right across the street. We didn't realize it till we went out to my truck and saw all the police cars pulling up, and cops running outside with their guns drawn. We got out of there really fast, let me tell you! And I keep thinking of that poor Brazilian kid who was blinded when he was caught in the cross fire

I'm glad you and your kids weren't having lunch in there yesterday...

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

There's definitely a backstory of some kind here, whether it's gangs or drugs they don't really know though. This is a family run restaurant. I eat there at least once a week for lunch, sometimes twice. To have masked gunmen burst into a restaurant and start shooting doesn't really sound like a random to me. If it truly is random then there's something far scarier going on.

Oh yeah no, I didn't mean this one was random, I just meant I agree that the police do sometimes seem to like to say some public murders were targeted hits to calm people down. Certainly this is not a random act of violence.

[Whatigot]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Forgive me for this offtopic post but this is the closest brush with this sort of thing for me yet. I just need to get this off my chest.

Not only is this my favourite restaurant, I had just had lunch there. Any other day of the week this would have been packed with my coworkers as it is one of the best Vietnamese soup around (my personal favourite), and it's right by my office, and the owners are the sweetest people you'll ever meet. I take my kids to this restaurant. I take my cats to the vetrinarian next door.

And now three people are dead, shot while dining inside.

Words cannot express my profound sadness and confusion at this moment in time.

My heart goes out to the owners of the restaurant. They are the sweetest people you could ever meet and they came to Canada presumably trying to find a better life for their family.

http://calgary.ctv.ca/servlet/an/loc...ub=CalgaryHome

I didn't read this whole thread, so pardon my ineptitude, but It's kind of shocking to think that this one incident that hit too close to for an individual is everyday life for a good portion of the human race.
Go to Africa or Columbia and the weirdest thing about people getting shot in a vietnamese restaurant is the fact that there was a vietnamese restaurant there to get shot in.

even here in Canada
I work just down the street from the downtown eastside in Vancouver, it's a reality check everytime i walk or drive through.
Sometimes I just take the long way home to witness what true disparity looks like, I've seen one guy, younger than me (I'm 26) get murdered (shot, point blank) for no reason by a guy he'd never met before.
I've seen alleyways more populated than some malls with people devoid of hope and concern for anything other than numbing it all and not shopping for material goods, but drugs.
I am by no means an activist or anything like a charitable guy, but I think that as a race, a human race, that these types of things are only going to get closer to home and we all better start to open our eyes to the problems next door and down the street if we don't want them to move in permanently.

[Delphinus]

[Heavily edited, my first attempt was a bit hasty]

I'm sorry you've yourself witnessed such terrible atrocities. That's a heavy burden to bear. I would think you as witness to such things should thus be able to empathize more than the average person with the people who were there.

Yes, it did hit close to home for me, because I had been there at this place only hours before with my young children. I am one of the naive people of the world that believes if you do good to others, hopefully less bad will be done to you. I know it really isn't that way, but you have to have a belief system of some kind. I'm sorry that I felt bad about it and felt compelled to share my grief here and that this act of posting it makes it seem like I don't care about bad things that happen elsewhere. If you knew me at all you'd know that is not the case. I know there is a lot of crime in the lower mainland too .. heck I was a victim of it myself a few years ago. Nothing as serious as witnessing a murder though.

My intent for resurrecting this thread was to let others know, as this restaurant in question has (had) a very loyal following, that they have reopened, so people can go there once again.

Peace be with you..

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

[Heavily edited, my first attempt was a bit hasty]

I'm sorry you've yourself witnessed such terrible atrocities. That's a heavy burden to bear. I would think you as witness to such things should thus be able to empathize more than the average person with the people who were there.

Yes, it did hit close to home for me, because I had been there at this place only hours before with my young children. I am one of the naive people of the world that believes if you do good to others, hopefully less bad will be done to you. I know it really isn't that way, but you have to have a belief system of some kind. I'm sorry that I felt bad about it and felt compelled to share my grief here and that this act of posting it makes it seem like I don't care about bad things that happen elsewhere. If you knew me at all you'd know that is not the case. I know there is a lot of crime in the lower mainland too .. heck I was a victim of it myself a few years ago. Nothing as serious as witnessing a murder though.

My intent for resurrecting this thread was to let others know, as this restaurant in question has (had) a very loyal following, that they have reopened, so people can go there once again.

Peace be with you..

Don't apologize for anything Tony...

It certainly would hit close to home for most people. Perhaps if you grow up in terrible areas such as the downtown east side here in Vancouver then maybe something like this is the norm and you can continue with your day as nothing happened...oh wait, for all the problems down there, there are not too many murders... I worked right on the edge of the downtown east side here and never got used to it. I lived in Miami where there are basically murders everyday. I lived in Toronto that makes Vancouver look very safe...Who cares? If it happens in your neigborhood, you should be shocked and it should hit close to home...when it doesn't anymore, there is a problem.

What difference does it make that in other parts of the world murder is the norm? I don't understand this logic and find it very ignorant. Just because its worse somewhere else doesn't mean you ignore the problems close to home. So since Colombia or Africa have major violence problems, we are not suppose to be shocked when it happens in our neighborhoods? LOL. Unless of course you have seen someone shot point blank...