People pay their respects at a vigil near the site of the Lapu Lapu festival tragedy in Vancouver, B.C., on April 29.Jimmy Jeong/The Globe and Mail
The health care team for a man who allegedly killed 11 strangers by driving his SUV through a crowded cultural festival last weekend had concerns in the past that he was unwilling to take his medication for schizophrenia, a source told The Globe and Mail.
Without medication, Adam Lo, 30, was deemed a high risk for his mental health to deteriorate, according to the source who has knowledge of Mr. Lo’s interactions with authorities.
At the time of Saturday’s devastating attack, Mr. Lo was required under British Columbia‘s Mental Health Act to check in regularly with the public mental-health care team near his family home, the source said. The Globe and Mail is not naming the source because they were not authorized to speak publicly about Mr. Lo’s history.
B.C.’s Premier David Eby said Tuesday that he wants to call a public inquiry to investigate whether gaps in the health care system failed Mr. Lo and contributed to the deaths at the Lapu-Lapu Day Festival.
After The Globe reported Monday that Mr. Lo was under official supervision, the Vancouver Coastal Health authority released more information Tuesday saying his care team was following him closely and that there was no indication he was violent.
“To the care team‘s knowledge, there was no recent change in his condition or non-compliance with his treatment plan that would’ve warranted him needing to be hospitalized involuntarily,” said the statement from the authority, which added it will continue reviewing his file. The statement did not say how long Mr. Lo had been in the care of the health authority.
But Mr. Lo objected to this care.
Last December, the source said, Mr. Lo attempted and failed to have these conditions removed through an appeal to the provincial Mental Health Review Board, an independent tribunal that holds hearings for people who feel they have unfairly been hospitalized against their will under the Mental Health Act.
Mr. Lo graduated from the University of B.C. with an arts degree in 2019, but by 2023 had been placed in a local psychiatric ward against his will, the source said. A year later, he was apprehended by Vancouver police for another, shorter detention in the hospital at the request of his mental-health team, The Globe has reported.
Around that same time his older brother, Alexander, was killed in a nearby house, according to an online fundraising effort launched by Mr. Lo.
Over the past two decades, more than 100 files were linked to Mr. Lo in the province‘s internal police database, with most of these occurring in recent years for calls related to his mental health or to him reporting incidents that weren‘t found to be crimes or offences, according to the source.
In more than a dozen incidents in the last year, including one last Friday, the day before the attack at the Lapu-Lapu Filipino festival, the interaction was prompted by a call to police from Mr. Lo himself, worried he was being harmed.
Mr. Lo, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, had paranoia and delusions, the source added.
Mr. Lo is charged with eight counts of second-degree murder and Vancouver police say they anticipate more charges. Despite the fact the attack occurred at a crowded Filipino festival, spokesperson Sergeant Steve Addison said that the incident is not being investigated as a hate crime, but as an “indiscriminate act of violence.”
Mark Swartz, Mr. Lo’s lawyer, declined to comment on the case.
Mr. Eby said Tuesday that he has enough questions about the care offered to Mr. Lo by the public health care system and how closely he was being monitored that he wants to call a public inquiry right now. But, he said, he will wait until Mr. Lo’s criminal trial is finished because he does not want to compromise the investigation and prosecution.
“British Columbians want answers about the contacts this individual had with the mental-health system,” he told reporters in Victoria.
A childhood friend who spoke to the Globe and Mail said Mr. Lo had become increasingly paranoid following the death of his brother, often telling the friend that he smelled chemicals in his house and fixating on fear that someone was intending to poison him. The Globe is not publishing the identity of this friend, who is Filipino-Canadian, because he fears repercussions for his relationship with Mr. Lo.
On Jan. 23, Mr. Lo purchased a US$1,159 gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer whose uses include identifying toxic industrial chemicals and chemical warfare agents, according to its manufacturer. The online seller who sold Mr. Lo the unit confirmed the transaction. The Globe is not identifying the merchant because they fear reprisals for interacting with Mr. Lo.
Over the past two months, Mr. Lo reported three separate acts of vandalism, according to a CarFax report obtained by The Globe.
All the damage for all of these incidents was estimated to be worthless, according to the report.
With a report from Tom Cardoso
