Last night, members of the Integrated Gang Unit entered the No. 5 Orange strip bar at Main & Powell St. They could be seen by a man standing in the free soup line up at the Sally Ann which parks across the street on Tuesday nights. "There were six of them," he says. "They had yellow stripes up the sides of their pants so I knew they were RCMP. They had dark jackets with 'Gang Unit' or "Gang something' on the back." They arrived in unmarked cars.
A few minutes later, two additional officers whom the witness says "looked like detectives" arrived in an unmarked car. They were looking at a laptop in their car, he noticed as he walked by with his hot soup. Then they got out of their car. "They were well dressed and they had briefcases." They spoke briefly to the other officers. Then all entered the strip bar together.
A woman who lives just a few doors up from the No. 5 Orange, which is rumored to be operated by the Hell's Angels (although an older man in the neighbourhood says he doesn't think that rumor is accurate), says a year or a year and a half ago, she was awakened one night by what sounded like gun shots. She looked out the window and saw a twenty-something East Indian male and another guy whom she couldn't see clearly, taking cover between parked cars. The East Indian guy told the other guy not to be crazy as he could get himself shot. There was a Jeep in the middle of the street with the door open and she got the impression that somebody in the vehicle had a gun. The guys on the street acted as though they had been drinking but she doesn't know if they had left the No. 5 Orange. There are other bars west of that block.
This woman, who is not criminally involved, didn't call police because, like many DTES residents, she is aware of evidence that the VPD can be "dirty" and she prefers to avoid them.
9 comments:
I would understand this particular post to be a venue for the photograph of the colorful No. 5 Orange Street sign rather than as a means to pick at the police in this city and beyond. I like the photo very much, and I look forward to more of them here.
"pick at the police"?
Police, like every other group of public servants, have to adjust to the fact that blogging brings a new era of accountability.
A woman at Carnegie just showed me a letter pertaining to the buried case I linked to in this post, the case where VPD officers working with United Way produced a police report that was so consistently fraudulent (and there is a paper trail to prove it) that it couldn't have been an accident. The letter on the Chief Constable's letterhead made me laugh because, although it contained the usual blanket denials of wrongdoing, it suggested that police are oblivious to that fact that the evidence of fraud in this case is now on internet news sites. They're covering up evidence that's already out.
This woman and I were chatting about the fact that any defense lawyer googling the names of the constables involved in this case will find the evidence against them (and United Way) that was never investigated. I think that's healthy.
Blogging is an abstraction and not a new era of accountability at all unless those who blog and those who read and know of the information and details therein actually make an effort to act in the concrete realm. If one has evidence of police wrong-doing, as is entirely possible, then it is up to the citizen to act effectively in making this known to the Police Commission, a rather more concrete plan than simply writing that the police are dirty. Even showing evidence of wrong-doing is not much, as there is evidence of flying saucers and of yetis, none of which is verified to any legitimate extent. There is ample evidence of me being a good guy, and still it is not enough to convince more than a dedicated handful of fanatics. One must act in the real world to show rather than simply tell. Otherwise, calling the police "dirty" is picking. Some are no doubt less than honest, and if so they should have their actions brought up before the community they police, for the good of all, including those police who cross the thin blue line themselves into misbehaviour.
I'm sure that those police who entered the tavern weren't doing so to pick up girls and get drunk. Give credit where it's due and lay blame where something can and will be done to rectify it.
You might feel that going to the police Commission will simply bring more notice on the person involved. That is a price one pays for living in a democracy rather than in a police state: one can make a calculated risk of benefit rather than having to resort to illegalities to make the law work. Try it, or have the complaintant try it. Then let loose the blogs of war if it turns out the police are truly dirty.
The woman who had the trouble with United Way did go to the Police Complaints Commission. Her case was dismissed with no reason given and when she called the PCC to ask for a reason, Cyndi Dyck admitted that the file had not even been opened. The public doesn't realize that that is how most complaints are handled at the PCC. DTES Enq should have a tape of the conversation with Dyck in the file.
who owns the #5 orange?? jesus fuckin christ....
In answer to your question about who owns the #5 Orange, if you ask any Downtown Eastsider, the answer you will get is that it's owned by the Hell's Angels. I have not verified that though.
Are you sure the Hells Angels own the No.5?... are you sure it isn't one of the Italian mob outfits, or maybe it's one of the Russian mob outfits... maybe it's owned by one or more H.A. members, but I highly doubt it's actually owned by the Hells Angles.... although, the H.A. are probably flattered that they get credit for owning whats probably a profitable business, with lots of fringe benefits.
Stephanie Lane was a stripper who worked at No. 5 Orange, and was a victim of the Pickton pig cult.
Pickton and his brother and all his pals at Piggy Palace were Hells Angels.
I was there that night and saw the 6 gang unit guys come in, they wandered around the bar for about 5 minutes and took a good look around as if they were looking for somebody. They zeroed in on one particular big guy who was with another guy near the table the Hells Angels typically sit at and asked him for ID and then left. It looks like somebody had called in a mistaken identity.
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