I'm sure they were very drunk, and she is his fiance.
The picture makes it look like they are making out, but according to witnesses, that wasn't the case. He was just comforting are and gave her a quick kiss.
I obviously wasn't there. Just repeating what some witnesses and his family stated about what happened.
Here is one of the articles I was reading.
"That's our boy!"
The parents of a young man photographed kissing a woman on a street in Vancouver, B.C. — amid broken glass and riot police — called media outlets proudly on Thursday to claim their son and resolve the mystery of the couple's identities, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC) and the Australian news website ninemsn.
The picture, which went viral on the Internet and was called the one bright moment in an otherwise ugly night, was snapped by a photographer during a riot that broke out following Vancouver's loss to Boston in the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday.
The parents of Scott Jones, of Perth, Australia, told ninemsn their son has been living in Vancouver, B.C., on a visa, working as a bartender and trying to break into acting and stand-up comedy.
They said he had attended the hockey match with his Canadian girlfriend, Alex Thomas.
The couple got caught between the police and the angry hockey fans who rampaged through downtown Vancouver after the Canucks' loss to the Bruins.
Interviewed by the CBC News on Friday night, Jones said the photo captured him trying to comfort his girlfriend after they both had been knocked over by Vancouver police during the riot.
"We weren't being aggressive towards (police) or anything like that. But eventually they passed over us. And that's when we were on the ground. She was a bit hysterical afterwards, obviously, and I was just trying to calm her down," Jones, 29, told CBC.
He said the police were beating them with shields, trying to get them to move out of the way.
"I was upset, and I fell down, and didn't really know exactly what was happening," said Thomas.
The couple don't blame the police for what happened; they understand they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, CBC News reported.
The freelance photographer who took the photo, Richard Lam, told The Vancouver Sun he didn't stop to talk to the couple because he feared for his safety. He said he was corralled by a tide of rioters and police when he spotted the couple on the ground between Georgia and Robson streets.
He took the photo and several more, but it wasn't until he returned to the media room at Rogers Arena that he realized what he had captured.
"A colleague said, 'Nice photo.' Then I went back to the editing room, and looked at it," he told The Sun. "My jaw dropped."
Jones' mother told ninemsn her son has been "having the time of his life, quite clearly" and he planned to bring home the "best souvenir ever in Alex."
Information from The Vancouver Sun, ninemsn and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. is included in this report. Seattle Times staff reporter Queenie Wong contributed to this report.
Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or
cclarridge@seattletimes.com
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