Guest editorial by Jacob Butula
Part One
It’s 6 p.m. in Vancouver and I’m walking down Commercial Drive to cash a cheque after work. Looking ahead, I see three police officers standing around a shorter, Hispanic-looking man. He’s familiar; I’ve seen the man before standing on the corner begging. They’re talking to him in lowered tones. They turn him around; handcuffs are attached. They usher him into a big, white, windowless van marked POLICE, and the door is closed behind him.
I walk right by it all, observing out of the corner of my eye. Part of me wants to interject. To ask what’s going on, to ask why the man is being arrested. But I’m tired and hungry. The police in this city scare me. The whole scene feels like too much trouble to bother with.
Once I’m 100 meters past, I turn around. I’ve just watched a man who was perfectly compliant, and rather harmless-seeming, get pushed into the back of a windowless van.
Changing relationships between citizens and police in Vancouver
Normally, I wouldn’t give the matter a second thought. This scene could be a routine police incident, handled in the appropriate manner, but recent legislation ought to make matters like this a subject of concern.
The Assistance to Shelter Act was recently passed in the B.C. legislature. The controversial law gives police officers the right to take homeless people to shelters during extreme weather conditions. It’s unnerving.
The new law gives police with discretionary power to apprehend the homeless against their will using reasonable force. Discretionary force is a murky clause at best. What force will individual police officers initiate when push comes to shove?
Most shelters in Vancouver do not have the resources or the space to accommodate shopping carts — often the extent of a homeless person’s worldly possessions — and this law has the potential to force homeless individuals to choose between cooperating with police or forfeiting all of their belongings.
Nothing in the legislation seeks to reconcile this conflict.
Trusting law enforcement
I go back. I ask the officers what happened. What crime has this man had committed? They brush me off. Tell me it’s just police business, and it’s nothing for me to worry about. The male officer is now sizing me up the way I imagine I’d look for a concealed weapon (if I were trained in such things). I really don’t have it in me to push for more information. I move on.
There is nothing about what I’d observed here, alone, that directly suggest any wrong-doing on the part of the police. What concerned me most was that I discovered that the police had lost the benefit of my doubt. I’ve encountered enough information in the media about law enforcement authorities acting in questionable ways, especially authorities connected to Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics.
The CBC recently reported that Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman was harassed by Canadian border authorities. Goodman — the main host of the U.S. based news program — is a respected, award-winning journalist who had a troubling experience while on her way to a speaking engagement at the Vancouver Public Library.
After the border guards thoroughly questioned about her intentions, and combed through her colleague’s computer, they told her that she could enter Canada only if she left within 48 hours. An action, it seems, because of a presumption that she planned to discuss the Olympics while in the city.
Other examples
If you really want to investigate this topic, or find more stories that diminish trust in law enforcement in this city, think about how police are questioning individuals who have seemingly little connection at all to Olympic dissent. Or take a look at the confusion over the Olympic signage by-law.
With issues like these appearing at an accelerating rate as we approach the Olympics in Vancouver, there needs to be more discussion and debate on these topics.
That being said, there’s a “Comment” button down at the bottom of this entry. What do you think: how would you have handled this situation? Am I reading the news with a little too much paranoia? Or should the average citizen be working harder than normal right now to ensure that everyone’s civil liberties are protected?
Updated: The ongoing public discussion over the new Assistance to Shelter act has resulted in the Vancouver Police Department stating that they will not use force to persuade homeless into shelters.
Please check back soon for part two of this editorial
Garibaldi Lake
Heading back from the fields near Bhilwara, Rajasthan
Organized cricket. Trivandrum, Kerala
A drink during recess. Outside of Calcutta, West Bengal
Vancouver police, a street person, and reflections on losing trust in law enforcement authorities: Updated
by evanduggan on December 7, 2009
Guest editorial by Jacob Butula
Part One
It’s 6 p.m. in Vancouver and I’m walking down Commercial Drive to cash a cheque after work. Looking ahead, I see three police officers standing around a shorter, Hispanic-looking man. He’s familiar; I’ve seen the man before standing on the corner begging. They’re talking to him in lowered tones. They turn him around; handcuffs are attached. They usher him into a big, white, windowless van marked POLICE, and the door is closed behind him.
I walk right by it all, observing out of the corner of my eye. Part of me wants to interject. To ask what’s going on, to ask why the man is being arrested. But I’m tired and hungry. The police in this city scare me. The whole scene feels like too much trouble to bother with.
Once I’m 100 meters past, I turn around. I’ve just watched a man who was perfectly compliant, and rather harmless-seeming, get pushed into the back of a windowless van.
Changing relationships between citizens and police in Vancouver
Normally, I wouldn’t give the matter a second thought. This scene could be a routine police incident, handled in the appropriate manner, but recent legislation ought to make matters like this a subject of concern.
The Assistance to Shelter Act was recently passed in the B.C. legislature. The controversial law gives police officers the right to take homeless people to shelters during extreme weather conditions. It’s unnerving.
The new law gives police with discretionary power to apprehend the homeless against their will using reasonable force. Discretionary force is a murky clause at best. What force will individual police officers initiate when push comes to shove?
Most shelters in Vancouver do not have the resources or the space to accommodate shopping carts — often the extent of a homeless person’s worldly possessions — and this law has the potential to force homeless individuals to choose between cooperating with police or forfeiting all of their belongings.
Nothing in the legislation seeks to reconcile this conflict.
Trusting law enforcement
I go back. I ask the officers what happened. What crime has this man had committed? They brush me off. Tell me it’s just police business, and it’s nothing for me to worry about. The male officer is now sizing me up the way I imagine I’d look for a concealed weapon (if I were trained in such things). I really don’t have it in me to push for more information. I move on.
There is nothing about what I’d observed here, alone, that directly suggest any wrong-doing on the part of the police. What concerned me most was that I discovered that the police had lost the benefit of my doubt. I’ve encountered enough information in the media about law enforcement authorities acting in questionable ways, especially authorities connected to Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics.
The CBC recently reported that Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman was harassed by Canadian border authorities. Goodman — the main host of the U.S. based news program — is a respected, award-winning journalist who had a troubling experience while on her way to a speaking engagement at the Vancouver Public Library.
After the border guards thoroughly questioned about her intentions, and combed through her colleague’s computer, they told her that she could enter Canada only if she left within 48 hours. An action, it seems, because of a presumption that she planned to discuss the Olympics while in the city.
Other examples
If you really want to investigate this topic, or find more stories that diminish trust in law enforcement in this city, think about how police are questioning individuals who have seemingly little connection at all to Olympic dissent. Or take a look at the confusion over the Olympic signage by-law.
With issues like these appearing at an accelerating rate as we approach the Olympics in Vancouver, there needs to be more discussion and debate on these topics.
That being said, there’s a “Comment” button down at the bottom of this entry. What do you think: how would you have handled this situation? Am I reading the news with a little too much paranoia? Or should the average citizen be working harder than normal right now to ensure that everyone’s civil liberties are protected?
Updated: The ongoing public discussion over the new Assistance to Shelter act has resulted in the Vancouver Police Department stating that they will not use force to persuade homeless into shelters.
Please check back soon for part two of this editorial