MONTREAL - A car-ramming Saturday at a Filipino community festival in Vancouver that killed at least 11 people marks Canada's fourth attack in seven years in which vehicles have been used as deadly weapons.
Around the world, perpetrators fuelled by motives ranging from terrorism and far-right extremism to misogyny and mental illness have deployed the tactic increasingly in recent decades.
Vehicles are "easily obtainable, and a ramming attack requires little preparation" or skill, notes a 2018 study from San Jose State University's Mineta Transportation Institute.
The gruesome practice has also proven devastating, yielding a high death toll in horrific fashion when crowds are gathered.
"It is in fact an effective tactic for motivated individuals to do harm, if you think about it, because it doesn't require any special training," said Jennifer Magnus, who teaches public safety and law enforcement at Wilfrid Laurier University.
"They can grab a vehicle, whether they rent it or use their own, and then just use it as a weapon against innocent bystanders."
Magnus, who served as a Calgary police officer for 14 years, also stressed the trauma and dread spawned by mass killings.
"It creates that level of fear in citizens."
Vancouver's interim police chief said a 30-year-old local man was arrested for the Saturday night attack, which saw an SUV plow through a crowded South Vancouver street at high speed in a nightmarish scene that left a trail of wreckage and victims strewn on the ground. The tragedy left 11 dead as of 12:30 p.m. EST, with dozens more injured.
Police said on social media platform X they were 鈥渃onfident鈥 the incident was not an act of terrorism.
While mass shootings are rare in Canada relative to its southern neighbour, car-ramming attacks have ramped up over the past decade.
In February 2023, a Quebec man was charged with killing two children and injuring six others after he allegedly drove a city bus into a Montreal-area daycare. The Crown and defence jointly submitted evidence the man was likely in a state of psychosis at the time. They are expected to recommend he be found not criminally responsible.
Four members of a Muslim family out for a walk were struck and killed by a pickup truck in London, Ont., in June 2021 in an incident a judge later deemed an act of terrorism.
In Toronto, a 25-year-old man drove a rented van into mostly female pedestrians on Yonge Street in April 2018, killing 11 people.
Parallel incidents have become frighteningly common across the globe.
Six people including a nine-year-old child died in Germany and more than 300 suffered injuries after a man sped through a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg in December.
In southern China, a man plowed his car into a group outside a sports centre in November, killing 35 in the country's deadliest mass slaying in years. Authorities said the 62-year-old was upset over the outcome of his divorce.
This report by 春色直播was first published April 27, 2025.
