He was 20 years old, wearing a bucket hat and hanging with two friends on the first day of a popular music festival, a belated trip to celebrate their high school graduation.
From behind, just below the rim of his hat, the assailant’s knife sliced into the right side of his neck, leaving a jagged wound stretching from his ear to upper shoulder.
He didn’t see the attacker. Didn’t know the assault was coming. He collapsed in a crowded area of the popular Shambhala festival in Southeastern B.C.
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Kyla Lee, a Vancouver criminal defence lawyer, said it is crucial that those types of guidelines are established, and there should also be a requirement for an independent, medical review panel to monitor the patients in care.
Lee doesn’t agree that B.C. needs to expand the scope of involuntary care. It exists right now under the Mental Health Act for people who are unable to care for themselves. But it’s not appropriate, she argued, for people who can feed themselves and live on their own, even if they have a drug addiction, mental illness or can act out violently.
“The simple fact that somebody could cause harm to somebody isn’t enough to justify taking away every single constitutional right you would have, and your autonomy over your body and your decision making in your life,” Lee said.