Among the many difficult and traumatic events that occurred during the riot on June 15th, 2011, was the story of what happened to the employees at the London Drugs store. You may recall that while looters were in the store, employees had to lock themselves in the back and endure hours of mayhem and fear while members of the VPD tried to reach them.
In the aftermath of those events, the employees and London Drugs wanted to do something to thank and acknowledge the Vancouver Police Department. The result was a t-shirt campaign and a subsequent directed donation by London Drugs to the VPD Mounted Unit.
The horses, who are brothers, were located in Dunster, BC, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. The story is a bit like two country boys coming down from a pretty wild and beautiful part of British Columbia to see if they had what it took to become "big city" cops. Only one in ten horses that go through our assessment process become members of the Mounted Unit; remarkably, both horses were selected.