Beloved Chinatown security guard remembered by wife, community

For decades, Harold Johnson patrolled the streets of Chinatown and touched the lives of just about everyone he met.

Harold Johnson first came into the public eye after he was viciously attacked by a stranger in 2022.

But he was beloved by business owners in Chinatown well before that—working there for more than two decades before dying of a heart attack last week.

His widow says her husband’s compassion when interacting with Chinatown’s homeless population set him apart. Brandy Larocque Johnson said her husband showed empathy without judgment.

“’I’m hurting, I’m on drugs, I’m not here in my own mind’, is the sort of thing Larocque Johnson says her husband would think while working in the neighbourhood, trying to put himself in others’ shoes.

“So, he would always try to be polite, try to be gentle with them.”

When doing his neighbourhood patrols, Johnson made a point of forming relationships with everyone.

“He spent so many years as a guard in our neighbourhood and he would always check in on us to make sure everything’s OK,” said Tracy To, a local business owner. “You know, make sure that we, as people, are doing OK. He was just that sort of guy.”

Johnson’s legacy lives on through other security guards he trained before retiring.

“He was very positive,” said one of those guards, James Williams. “He had many very good relationships. He set the standard. So, I have to live up to that standard.”

Chinatown business owners are rallying around Larocque Johnson, even bringing small financial contributions while CTV News was interviewing her at her shop Grandma’s Jewellery Box.

A GoFundMe has also been set up to help with expenses including funeral costs.

“Harold and Brandy were already dealing with serious financial hardship,” online fundraiser organizer Lorraine Lowe wrote on the page for Larocque Johnson. “Grief is devastating on its own. But grief plus financial crisis is a kind of suffering no one should face alone.”

Ultimately, for the boy from Burnaby who grew up to be a staple in Vancouver’s Chinatown, it’s the little moments together his wife will cherish.

“Him always coming and bugging me,” said Larocque Johnson when asked what she will miss most. “When he was retired, he would come here and sit with me in the store, and we would have our coffee and our lunch, and then he’d go take a little walk.

“He’d go all round town talking to all sorts of people I suppose, in his walks, and then he’d come back and report to me.”

Johnson was 67, and while he survived the brutal 2022 attack. Brandy said he suffered with a number of related health conditions in the aftermath during his final years.