Crown seeks jail for confessed Cup rioter
Asks judge for four-month sentence
A Surrey man caught up in the destruction on the night of the Stanley Cup riot gave a heartfelt apology to a Provincial Court judge in Vancouver on Thursday.
Emmanuel Alviar, 19, dressed in a brown suit, stood and addressed the court during a pre-sentence hearing following his guilty plea on participating in a riot charge.
“There is not a lot I can say about my foolish actions,” Alviar said.
“I want to apologize to the people of Vancouver for my actions,” he said, noting that in helping to incite the crowd, “I added to the chaos.”
He told the court his behaviour on June 15 last year is “something I am not proud of.
“A lot of things have happened since then,” he continued. “People choose to judge me, they look at me as if I am not even human.
“I lost my dignity . . . and today I am ashamed to show my face around Vancouver.”
Prosecutor Patti Tomasson said Alviar’s involvement in the riot should be put into the overall context of the damage and mayhem that ensued that night.
Alviar appears in more than a dozen video clips either standing by or participating in the damage.
In one, he has his hands on a car that has been vandalized, attempting to push it over. Another clip has him taking a wooden barricade and trying to smash through a storefront window.
“The riot has stripped a sense of safety and security for the citizens of Vancouver,” Tomasson told Judge Reginald Harris.
In asking for a sentence of four months in jail, Tomasson also noted Alviar had left his Surrey home with four 14-yearolds and taken public transit to be in Vancouver’s downtown core as the hockey game unfolded.
“Mr. Alviar was present from the flipping of the first car and chose to participate and continue to participate in the riot,” said Tomasson.
The judge reserved his decision.