By NEAL HALL
VANCOUVER SUN
June 6, 2012
VANCOUVER – Vancouver police released a surveillance video today showing two people throwing red paint on the windows of a Vancouver fur store last month.
The vandals are believed to have targeted two other Vancouver fur stores recently.
Police are hoping the public will recognize the two people in the surveillance video, although one suspect uses an umbrella to block the camera’s view and the other is wearing a hoodie and a partial face covering.
The surveillance video caught the suspects walking toward Snowflake Furs, located at 750 West Pender Street, at 3:45 a.m. on May 22nd.
Red paint was thrown on the store’s north and west windows on Howe St.
A few minutes later, red paint was also thrown onto the exterior of Pappas Furs, located at 449 Hamilton Street.
Paint was also thrown on the windows of Speiser Furs at 3022 Granville St.
The fur stores have been targeted in the past with similar acts of mischief, however, but no suspects have been identified.
The radical group Animal Liberation Front took credit for the acts of vandalism in an anonymous press release, which said its actions were done “to remind the public of the innocent blood spilled every day in the vicious fur trade.”
The release said: “This action is dedicated to the hundreds of thousands of mink suffering and dying on the many, filthy, polluted fur farms in the Lower Mainland.”
It also claimed that ALF activists went to the home of Capilano Furs owner Eugene Klein on May 21 and spray-painted a dodge truck and a car sitting in his driveway.
Klein confirmed that two cars and the sign outside his North Vancouver home were vandalized. At the time, he called the perpetrators “yellow-bellied cowards.”
Police said today that the cost of the damage to the exterior of the buildings has not been determined.
nhall@vancouversun.com