16 June 2011 Last updated at 15:21 GMT

Rioting Canadians exposed online

Images are being gathered to identify those involved in the Vancouver riot

Concerned Canadians have turned to social media to name and shame people behind the riots in Vancouver.

Violence flared in the city after the Vancouver Canucks hockey team lost to the Boston Bruins in the final game of the Stanley Cup.

Cars were set on fire and shops were looted by mobs of angry fans roaming the city centre.

Facebook groups and picture blogs have been set up to catalogue those inciting the worst of the violence.

A "riot criminal list" was created on the Tumblr photo blog site to gather images of those claimed to be involved. It gathered video of the ongoing trouble as well as pictures of individuals breaking shop windows, helping to flip cars and attacking riot police. Dozens of pictures were posted within hours of it being set up.

Similar pages on Facebook have attracted thousands of supporters.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and the police department issued calls to those in the city at the time of the riot to save their pictures.

Mayor Robertson said they would be used to identify and track down the "hooligans" involved. The police said they would set up a site where people can electronically upload images.

A Facebook event has also been created to help deal with the aftermath of the riot. The page asks for pledges to go into the city centre and help to clean up. More than 10,000 people have signed up to get involved.

An associated Twitter account called @vancouverclean aims to co-ordinate the volunteer effort when it gets underway.

The page advises people to bring gloves, garbage bags and smiles along.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13790528

How can you go about looting shops and destroying police cars and posing for cameras at the same time in this age of the social media?

Is it that they are high on something, dumb or is it just that mob mentality of "well, since there are many of us involved, it is not a crime?"

The "stars" of the show

You think it would be difficult for the police to pick this guy up?

you forgot the picture of thatguy that was smooching his girl in front of the police while others were running away.

You mean this picture?

Well, that picture does not tell what really happened to the couple.

Here's the real gist:

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17 June 2011 Last updated at 10:25 GMT
Vancouver riots: A kiss amid the chaos?
By Anna Jones

BBC News

In the aftermath of the ice hockey riots which broke out in Vancouver on Wednesday night, the Canadian public have been left asking two questions.

Firstly, how did their city, considered by many to be one of the world's most pleasant to live in, come to be the scene of such wanton violence? And secondly, was that really a photograph of a couple locked in a passionate embrace lying in the street between rioters and police?

Amid images of burning cars, furious faces and smashed shop windows, the couple seem almost serene - he romantically leaning over, her arm on his neck and her skirt raised.

The photo has gone viral, has its own Photoshopped meme and a @kissingcouple now have a Twitter account.

"What were we thinking?" says the second of the two posts so far.

'Visible pain'

But details are emerging which suggest the battlefield clinch may not be all it seems and that instead of a moment of careless abandon the woman may have been injured in the unrest and was being comforted rather than embraced.

Continue reading the main story
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I don't think they were in any mood for people to be playing around setting something up like this”
End Quote
Richard Lam

Photographer
"The police line rushed the crowd and this couple trying to stay together couldn't react in time and were run over by two riot police officers," a man called William who said he witnessed the incident told the Vancouver Sun.

"The girl who was knocked over landed head first on the pavement with her boyfriend landing partially on top of her. She was in visible pain, crying, but the two officers gave them a parting shove and moved on. Bystanders went to make sure she was OK."

Another person wrote on an ice hockey fan site that the police had contained the area but left the couple alone.

"The girl appeared to hurt her ankle and that is why the photo was able to come into existence," he said.

Vancouver police have not commented on what happened and there are few official details on the incident. It is not yet known whether the woman was among some 150 people who needed hospital treatment.

A second image taken from another angle does little to clear up the mystery. It shows the couple on the ground but surrounded by people - some have said this shows they were in need of help while others have suggested it is proof the whole thing was staged.


Does this show more concern than romance? But photographer Richard Lam - who said that at first he had no idea of the drama he had captured - thinks this is unlikely.

"What you don't see in the frame is that 20ft beyond is the mounted [police] squad, on horseback. I don't think they were in any mood for people to be playing around setting something up like this," he told the Atlantic Wire.

"I wasn't hanging around at all, it was chaos. Maybe someone had a really brilliant idea to do it, I don't know. I don't want to speculate. The police line had just moved, there was tear gas, people were getting pepper sprayed, there was a lot going on."

A woman in Australia has now come forward to say the man is her son, Scott Jones, and that the woman is his Canadian girlfriend, Alex Thomas.

"It is something he would do, that's our boy," Megan Thomas told NineMSN.

"He has always lived in his own world, he's special like that. He doesn't always connect with what's going on around him. He just reacts and the whole world goes on around him."

She added that her son has been doing some standup comedy while in Canada, prompting suggestions this was an attempt by him to create some new material for his act.

Mr Thomas's family said his Facebook page was covered with comments from friends who had spotted him in the international news coverage of the riots.

His reported response: "Classic! This was shortly after the riot police run over the top of us and naturally Alex needed some comforting."

As Vancouverites take to the streets again, this time to clear up the mess left behind by some of the worst rioting in the city's memory, some Tweeters have suggested solving the mystery of the couple may not be a priority.

"People, if you have time to hunt for the kissing couple maybe you could help identifying the rioters first," wrote Eltaria.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13807494

Love among the ruins: Details about couple in 'Vancouver Riot Kiss' photo revealed

Australian news website identifies couple as an Australian male, Vancouver female

By Brad Frenette, Vancouver Sun June 17, 2011 9:34 AM Comment 39 •Story•Photos ( 1 )

VANCOUVER - Following the riots in Vancouver, one photo was shared more than the rest among users of Twitter and other social media. It shows a young couple tangled in each other's arms on the street, kissing, while the police and mayhem-makers clash all around them.

"I was trying not to get my ass kicked," says Vancouver freelance photojournalist Richard Lam, who took the photo, when asked if he'd stopped to talk to the couple.

Indeed, it was a hectic, and unexpected, path that led to the photo, he explains: "I was shooting the game - and me and another photographer decided to go. By the time I got out there it was out of control. I started out in front of The Sandman Hotel and ended up at The Bay. There was still looters coming out, two cars were on fire."

Soon, he was forced onto Seymour, corralled by the hard tide of the rioters and the riot police, "waving sticks and shields". There, between Georgia and Robson, he spotted the couple on the ground.

"I thought people were hurt. Next thing I knew there was some guy running toward the riot police, another waving a mannequin leg. I really didn't know what they were doing."

Lam got the shot, and several more, and didn't think much of it. He returned to the media room at Rogers Arena, where his editor (he was filing for Getty Images) took his memory card and imported it.

"I didn't even look at it. A colleague said 'nice photo'. Then I went back to the editing room, and looked at it. My jaw dropped."

The photo has kept Lam busy, with media outlets such as NPR, The New York Daily News and MSN all interviewing him. And there are other photos of the couple, he says, and thanks to the attention the original has received, he thinks the others will be published soon.

"I've been fascinated by [the response]. I don't want to sound idealistic - but I was just doing my job."

And as the city takes a deep breath after the events of Wednesday night, Lam too is taking a break. Asked if he'll be pursuing more photos from the clean-up, he laughs: "No one is paying me to cover the aftermath, so I'm not covering it."


Update: William, a citizen witness, wrote to The Sun to explain what REALLY happened.

He said: "I was on the top floor of a parkade on Seymour, the couple was right outside of the parkade on the street in front of me. What happen was the police line rushed the crowd and this couple trying to stay together couldn't react in time and were run over my 2 riot police officers. The girl who was knocked over landed head first on the pavement with her boyfriend landed partially on top of her. She was in visible pain, crying, but the 2 officers gave them a parting shove and moved on. By standers went to go make sure she was ok. I understand that the front line police have to control the crowd but it is a bit ridiculous that they couldn't have other officers or paramedics behind the line to help anyone who is hurt."


Another update: The couple photographed kissing on the ground in the midst of the chaos of Vancouver's riot Wednesday night have been identified.


Media reports say the pair are 29-year-old Australian Scott Jones and his girlfriend Canadian Alex Thomas.


Thomas is reportedly a student at the University of Guelph in Ontario.


Jones's father outted his son in a Facebook post.


"This is my Son," Brett Jones wrote next to the now-famed photo of the pair, which was snapped by freelance photographer Rich Lam during the riot. "Hows (sic) that for making love not war!"


Scott Jones' family told the Australian news website Ninemsn that her brother and Thomas had recently started dating.


"It is something he would do; that's our boy," mother Megan Jones told the site. "He has always lived in his own world. He's special like that. He doesn't always connect with what (is) going on around him."


The family said Jones has been in Canada for six months, working as a bartender and performing a live standup show


Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Love+among+ruins+Details+about+couple+Vancouver+Riot+Kiss+photo+revealed/4959172/story.html#ixzz1PY4mD1ha

Here are other photographs of the scene from other angles

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Can you believe this guy?

He must have watched too many kung-fu films!

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So I ask the question again:

johnie:

How can you go about looting shops and destroying police cars and posing for cameras at the same time in this age of the social media?

Is it that they are high on something, dumb or is it just that mob mentality of "well, since there are many of us involved, it is not a crime?"

they have been restricted for a loooooooooooong time, many of them will get off on a caution some will get criminal records

demonstration of craze is good for the system once in a while

That guy in white tank top ended up getting beat badly, This is like a culture in Vancouver everytime they get to semi finals or finals and the lose, Childish fans lol


i took a picture of some looters but lost my phone, The entire Burrard street, to Richards, Davis and Granville street were mad up in smoke (cop cars), All I could do after losing my fone and camera was sit back, roll up a joint, sit on a slab and nurse my injured girlfriend who's foot got stabbed through her flip flop by a broken glass, Horrible fans in my opinion,

They took your phone?

(

lol,  I lost it in the menace,  No body dare tasi mi like dat jor.  Non rioters were trying to get away from riot police and rioters cause if you are not a rioter and get caught up in the menace, you'll probably be arrested. My fone fell in a stampede; so there was no reason for me to bog since i have a back up of all my files and contact plus I get new fone free too,  So I won't bog over it,

A Facebook event has also been created to help deal with the aftermath of the riot. The page asks for pledges to go into the city centre and help to clean up. More than 10,000 people have signed up to get involved.

An associated Twitter account called @vancouverclean aims to co-ordinate the volunteer effort when it gets underway.

The page advises people to bring gloves, garbage bags and smiles along.

Can this ever happen in Nigeria?If it were to be in 9ja people would be busy blaming the govt without playing their roles as patriotic citizens.Citizens are ready to volunteer to clean up the city, upload pictures etc.No wonder crime will continue to stay in Nigeria, no body does altruistic work.

good to see that there are barbarians outside Nigeria.
these are animals.

Hahaha.    

Anarchy of the highest order!!

Do tell what would happen if same type happened in Nigeria?

looking like aan oyibo version of the post election violence

its true what they say, the beast lurks within us all

johnie:

You think it would be difficult for the police to pick this guy up?

You'd think it's easy, but it's not.

There are one million others that looks like that guy.

"This is my Son," Brett Jones wrote next to the now-famed photo of the pair, which was snapped by freelance photographer Rich Lam during the riot. "Hows (sic) that for making love not war!"


Scott Jones' family told the Australian news website Ninemsn that her brother and Thomas had recently started dating.


"It is something he would do; that's our boy," mother Megan Jones told the site. "He has always lived in his own world. He's special like that. He doesn't always connect with what (is) going on around him."

I guess there's something to be proud about.

"It is something he would do; that's our boy," mother Megan Jones told the site. "He has always lived in his own world. He's special like that. He doesn't always connect with what (is) going on around him.

Actual Interpretation: My son is crazy. But I still love him

How cute