A police officer talks on a phone at a crime scene outside a church in Vancouver, on Sept. 4.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press
A man charged with severing one man’s hand and killing another man in two knife attacks in downtown Vancouver this week had twice agreed with judges in recent years that he needed treatment for his mental-health problems.
Court records show Brendan McBride spent much of the last two years on probation after pleading guilty in 2022 to assault causing bodily harm in North Vancouver and again this spring to an assault charge stemming from an incident in White Rock, a suburb south of Vancouver, last fall. In both cases, judges ordered Mr. McBride to undergo psychiatric treatment and neither sent him to jail.
The court records do not specify what type of help he accessed or whether he was ever treated in an institution for his mental-health problems. The day before Wednesday morning’s knife attacks, Mr. McBride allegedly violated the terms of this probation by failing to check in with his probation officer in nearby Surrey, B.C., court documents filed after his arrest show.
On Thursday, Mr. McBride, 34, was charged with aggravated assault and second-degree murder.
The man now accused of murdering Francis David Laporte, 70, outside a popular civic theatre and severing the hand of a 56-year-old man had more than 60 interactions with police in and around Vancouver in recent years, according to Police Chief Adam Palmer. For privacy reasons, police are not releasing the name of the aggravated assault victim, who remains in hospital after undergoing surgery.
The police chief told reporters Wednesday that he believed the suspect was among the minority of people struggling with serious mental illness who needed to be forced into care.
Chief Palmer also bristled at the leniency afforded Mr. McBride by the criminal justice system, pointing out Mr. McBride’s probation orders were “quite light” without offering specifics and questioned why he had “some serious charges” stayed against him. Chief Palmer also alleged the suspect had a history of assaulting police officers and health care workers.
This April, Mr. McBride was sentenced by a B.C. Provincial Court justice in Surrey for the White Rock assault. The justice stayed his related charge of resisting or obstructing the local RCMP officer who tried to arrest him.
Mr. McBride could avoid being jailed, the judge ruled, as long as he agreed to nine conditions that included keeping the peace, giving his victim an apology letter and completing psychiatric treatment, with the possibility of living at a specialized facility, as directed by his probation officer.
Last year, he had been given a year’s probation by another judge in North Vancouver for assaulting a man there and Mr. McBride agreed to nine conditions that also included attending psychiatric outpatient therapy.
Concerns have been growing in cities across the country about public disorder, prompting calls for federal and provincial politicians to do something about repeat violent offenders and a mental-health crisis exacerbated by a toxic drug supply.
Involuntary care of those battling complex mental illnesses and addictions is increasingly being embraced by politicians in B.C. and Alberta as a model to help those in need as well as address public outrage over extreme poverty and disorder on some city streets.
In an investigation published last year, The Globe and Mail found there is no reliable tally of how many people across B.C. are responsible for repeated acts of random violence, but B.C. mayors estimated there are likely a couple hundred or more.
Matt Warren said he and Mr. McBride went to school together in North Vancouver and were close friends from early childhood up until around age 20. He said his friend was “always very paranoid, but never crazy,” in his view.
“He reached out a few times in his 20s to say he was being abused, being held against his wish,” Mr. Warren told The Globe and Mail. “He had reached out to me last November to ramble about the church, demons he was fighting and that God had let him down.”
In text messages shared with The Globe, Mr. McBride told his friend that month that he was “dealing with a spiritual conflict with god, the father of perhaps the devil.” He said he was on government disability, living in White Rock, and believed there was a “militant scheme” to torture him through surveillance and psychological torment. Mr. Warren responded in a message that Mr. McBride always had a friend in him, and to let him know how he could help.
Mr. Warren said he was shocked to learn of Wednesday’s attack.
“The Brendan I knew extremely well had a good heart and cared for people. Whatever he went through ... had clearly taken control of him,” he said. “I didn’t know he was directly a threat to anyone, but I also didn’t know who to call.”