Saturday, June 14, 2008

Woman Complains to Police of Criminal Harassment by Carnegie Coffee Seller, Devor

We heard this from Bill and one other person but we haven’t confirmed it yet. A Carnegie member is lodging a formal complaint of criminal harassment against Devor, the chronic abuser in the Carnegie Center Senior’s Lounge. We know that she called police this afternoon. But we are not clear on whether a formal report was written up yet. Her goal, we are told, is to start a file so that she can have every incident added to it and eventually get charges laid or at least get a no contact order.

The story we are getting second and third hand is that Devor has had it in for this woman for a long time. He told her that he didn’t want her back in the Senior’s Lounge after Board member Rachel Davis raised the issue of him playing the television at deafening levels – way beyond the safe level of 90 decibels – at a Board meeting. He is at least partially deaf and likes to crank up the television at about three times the WorkSafe level for a normal person. The Seniors Lounge is a multi-purpose room with people going in there to use the Vancouver Public Library computers and coming out with their ears ringing from the blazing gun fire and cussing, etc. from his DVDs. Anyway, we were told a few months ago, that this woman couldn’t even buy a coffee at the Senior’s Lounge take-out wicket without this guy literally yelling in her face about how he didn’t want her back because she was causing him trouble.

This woman had actually not been the one who asked Davis to raise the issue of sound levels at a Board meeting, although she and other Carnegie members expressed relief that Davis had raised the issue. But this woman appears to be the one Devor blames.

Now, every time this woman goes into the Senior’s Lounge, Devor cranks up the volume to deafening levels and looks right at her and tells her that if she doesn’t like it, she can "Go! Go!". (He speaks pigeon English.) He often, according to what we have learned from witnesses over the past year, takes it upon himself to evict her from a City facility: "You go! No come back!". She stopped going to the Seniors Lounge for months, but this week she went in a few times because she needed to use the computers and the third floor computer room is crawling with bed bugs. (Bed bugs are even crawling out of the CPUs.)

Today, we are told that Devor got angry with this woman, telling her that she had used the wrong wall clock when writing down her computer start time. He operates two wall clocks, a few minutes apart for some reason. Don’t ask us why. People who sign in on one clock, are then yelled at and told their time is "out" based on the other clock. This man is from Croatia and something happened to him there that we can only speculate about.

Anyway, if this woman speaks up about anything in the Senior’s Lounge, Devor allegedly incites the men in the room – many of whom have done jail time for violent crimes – to become very aggressive toward her. She told Devor today -- and this was confirmed by a witness who was standing at the take-out window -- that he should talk to her directly instead of calling on the other men in the room to deal with her. Usually he starts – we have heard this story so many times -- by yelling insulting comments at her, then calling on the whole room of guys to deal with her, making it impossible for the guys to keep watching their television show. And he invariably tells the guys that if they don’t deal with her, their television show will be turned off. “Do you want me to turn off television?” he taunts them in his Croatian accent and pigeon English. (He has been in Canada for a reported 35 years and this is as the only complete sentence he seems to know.) He gets the guys riled up. And then, if they only yell at her a bit, he will go to them one by one and say things individually in their ears, apparently encouraging them to have a go at her.

Today she apparently gave Devor what wanted. She yelled back at him, even though she’s not known for yelling or blowing up at people at Carnegie. She was screaming at him that she was fed up with his abuse. “Find another woman to abuse!!!”, she told him. He was telling her to "Get out!!" etc. etc. This is all happening on your tax dollars by the way.

This is also all happening on the watch of Carnegie Director, Ethel Whitty. It's as if Whitty has put yellow tape around the cesspool of the Senior's Lounge and never ventures down to actually deal with what goes on. Whitty has been seen at the Senior's Loung only once since she started working at Carnegie a year and a half ago; she was seen standing outside the Lounge at the take-out window buying herself a tea.

It is noteworthy that Whitty went on CBC Radio a few months ago and accused a non-violent man, Bill Simpson, of being a WorkSafe issue at Carnegie, as a means of covering her ass and that of her boss Jacquie Forbes-Roberts when they were criticized for banning Simpson from the building two weeks after he was elected to the Board. There is no question that Whitty lied outright to the public while on the radio, as the letter Forbes-Roberts sent to Simpson made no mention of a WorkSafe issue. Forbes-Roberts stated in the letter that Simpson was banned from Carnegie because he had operated a website which "features links" to a blog which criticizes Carnegie staff. Carnegie members, both those who like and dislike Simpson, consistently say that he was never violent, never physically aggressive, never threatening. When there is a real risk from an abuser in the basement at Carnegie, costing taxpayers money on a regular basis as security guards are constantly having to sprint to the basement to break up fights because Devor has launched into a power-tripping rage at yet another member. What has become obvious is that Whitty cares little about safety in the building. She will falsely blame a man for being a safety risk when in fact he was nothing but a political critic, but she will do nothing about a real safety risk. (Whitty has performed better on the issue of hearing damage in the Seniors Lounge. Some of the coffee sellers do now keep the sound lower, we are told. But Devor is not one of them and he seems to have more shifts than anyone else.)

From what we’re hearing, Devor's abuse will now be a police matter. There is little doubt that his constant targeting of this woman, yelling at her, threatening, inciting anger and hostility toward her, has reached the level of criminal harassment.

One member said, "I hope she gets the f*cker deported." Most members don't say much though, they only smile.

22 comments:

Rachel Davis said...

Devor is a chronic abuser. No doubt about it. And so very arrogant in his seemingly un-touchableness that when I first got security to take down his girlie calendar, I was informed that he put it right back up again, just in a less obvious spot, so me and another woman took it back down again ourselves right after I was elected to the board.
When I told security the next day about how he'd put it back up, expecting the Head of Security to express some anger for Devor's blatant disregard for the rules and defiance towards security, instead, I heard alarm about my taking Devor's property. I still have that property, if this woman needs some physical evidence for her case.
I saw another girlie Calendar in the Pool room a while ago, and I told security about it. By the time they got down there, it was gone. Fine. But the next time I went to get coffee Devor was yelling at me incomprehensibly about how I was sick in the head and seeing things, imagining this girlie calendar, and I'm just trying to "hassle" him and next time I do something he's going to go tell my "bosses" that I am "crazy person, not right in the head"
(This was before Ethel and Rika took away the song circle job, as a paying job)
I went up to Dan Tetrault to complain, and to his credit, he acted on it immediately. He right away went down stairs and then came back to report to me that there was just a bit of a mixup, Devor had thought I was saying the calendar was in the seniors lounge itself, but never the less, he didn't condone his threatening me with accusations of "craziness".
Kind of ironic that he took that stance, because I've heard more than one person say that the "powers that be" have been using the made up story of my being a Mental Health Consumer in an attempt to discredit me for some time , and I've heard Paul Taylor do it in person, in front of other Board members. And of course, he hints of that in his latest article about the board. No one, staff or board seems to think that is out of line.

Recently, Devor was absent from the centre for 2 weeks. The story at first was that he was so disturbed by security finally being on someone else's side against him, he stormed off for 2 weeks. But that made no sense to me. No one gets mad and says "That's it! I'm out of here! I'll be back in two weeks! The story just wasn't in line with human behavior. Besides, two weeks is precisely the standard amount of time that a person gets barred for by security.
I think he was actually barred, and the story of him doing a voluntary stint away was put about so that no one would think that security had acted against him, so they wouldn't be approached to do so again. It's so much easier when people think it's useless to complain.
Speaking of useless complaining, I guess this woman didn't bother to make out an incident report at the Carnegie, and maybe she doesn't want to, but if she does, I would help with that.

Oh, and by the way, it was no one person at all who came to me to tell me that the senoirs lounge TV was too loud. The day I got a motion passed to get a decibel meter, was the same day I read here that it was causing discomfort........Maybe Ethel realized that, and that's why she made a point of telling us all at the next board meeting that they'd investigated the situation and found out that, gee, some seniors (read one large rude senior in particular) were deaf, and needed the sound too loud so as far as the sound meter being used to monitor the situation......well that just didn't really seem workable................
Good to hear that it's used anyway sometimes though.

Rachel Davis said...

Oh, and I forgot to add that Ethel, in the same speech about the need for loudness of the TV, also suggested that the people complaining about the loudness were really only the computer users, so perhaps the real solution was to just move the computers out of the seniors lounge.......

Anonymous said...

hi rachel. the woman in questio was norma jean they both are hot tempered.

reliable sources said...

The woman in question who was not Norma Jean did, we are told, tell the Head of Security, Skip, yesterday that, "This abuse has to stop." Skip just walked past her and did not respond. He went downstairs with Devor and got only Devor's side of the story; he made no attempt to speak to her about it even though she remained in the building for some time. The woman saw Skip outside the building when she left but he quickly averted his eyes and took off on his bicycle.

Later Devor announced that the woman was barred from the Seniors Lounge computers until she spoke to Skip on Wednesday. This is not the first time, City staff have delegated the task of announcing and enforcing a barring of a person to a volunteer with known power-tripping tendency. If this is accurate, it is serious misconduct on the part of Skip. And it wouldn't be the first time.

Skip engaged in serious professional misconduct in supervising the barring of William Simpson from the Learning Center by Lucy Alderson, with no supporting evidence. Later when Simpson asked Skip to put the reasons in writing, Skip responded, "Ah come on, I'm new here."

Does anybody know Skip's real name? People who are being barred should be given it so that they know who is barring them.

Anonymous said...

He sign's his correspondence, "Skip Everall, Security Coordinator"

reliable sources said...

anonymous,

Thanks for the name.

Anonymous said...

"Skip Everall" is just "Run Roughshod" said with a scottish accent

Rachel Davis said...

Howdy,
Anon. might mean that it was Norma Jean who had the set-to with Devor that caused him to be absent for two weeks. Not that she was the one who was most recently abused. I'd heard somewhere else that it was Norma Jean in that fracas at the time it happened, though I never really heard what the original problem was.
Norma Jean is on the board now, maybe she would be inclined to help with this problem, though there is no "Security Committee", that's a serious oversight, considering what a large concern that is at Carnegie. Maybe we could get 150 signatures of members, like it says in the Carnegie Constitution, and hold a Special General Meeting and the members could vote a Security Committee into existence!

Dag said...

The Carnegie Centre needs an impartial, outside over-sight committee. Don't have that, have problems continually. No end.

reliable sources said...

dag,

I think it was you who suggested picketing VanCity if they continue to fund Carnegie as civil liberties abuses are rampant?

I think taking the issue to the marketplace is the only thing that will work.

I don't want to act, though, before speaking to the victim and finding out all the details. I heard she was upset and that her health was damaged by absorbing the abuse and libel/slander from Devor and Skip.

reliable sources said...

Several security guards, reportedly, want Skip gone. They have numerous complaints against him.

Further, Skip does not have the restraint necessary to work as head of security. Bill Simpson saw Skip and some guards with a guy pinned to the ground in front of Carnegie. Skip, he said, clenched his fist and pulled his arm back in the position one would take before punching the man. "Then he saw me watching him and he dropped his fist," Bill says. There was no need to punch the guy because the guards already had him down.

Anonymous said...

Paul Taylor was a mental health consumer who was in St. Paul's Hosp. psych ward and got shock treatment.

Dag said...

There are endless kinds of mentally ill people, most of whom live normal lives of productive happiness and community joy; and then there are those whose behavior, regardless of their personal being and state, is so egregious as to torment Life itself. To allow those who are, to refer to classical psychiatry, afflicted with "Bugz un der Brianz," positions of public trust is socially irresponsible to the point of criminality, if not actual illegality. Those who put Lavrenti Beria in charge of the Soviet secret police, and those who left him in charge, are responsible for his efforts. Mental state is no excuse.

Anonymous said...

the 2 wek absents of devor was he got in a tiff with norma jean whom also is a trouble maker.

Anonymous said...

CAR 86 WHERE ARE YOU?

Dag said...

I looked for that post, "Car 86 where are you?" and I don't see it. Is it gone?

reliable sources said...

dag,

That post is still up. The photo you contributed of the two cops from the "Car 54 where are you?" tv series is still up too. Here's the address:

http://downtowneastsideenquirer.blogspot.com/2007/11/united-way-implicated-in-political.html

I've always been under the impession that the psych car on the Downtown Eastside is called Car87, but maybe it's Car 86. I'll look it up; it's difficult to keep the numbers straight.

Anonymous said...

it's not a car on the dtes, they serve all of vancouver and there is both 86 and 87, or there used to be, one with a psych nurse on board and they other is specifically for children on the streets
anyway, it's nearly impossible to get either to come to respond

reliable sources said...

anonymous,

Thanks for clarifying the difference between Car 86 and 87.

It may be "nearly impossible to get either to come to respond" if you have a genuine case of a mentally ill person who poses a risk to themselves or others. But there is mounting documented evidence that Car 87 is quick to respond when someone in a position of power wants a political critic silenced/smeared. That political psychiatry allegedly practiced by Car 87 and nurse Don Getz triggered the current international boycott of Vancouver School Board diplomas.

You're right that Car 87 doesn't operate exclusively on the Downtown Eastside, but it seems to be turning civil liberties into road kill more often on the Downtown Eastside than in other areas of Vancouver. One Downtown Eastsider spoke to BC Civil Liberties about becoming the target of a politically motivated Car 87 visit and was told,"Ask yourself if this would have happened if you lived in Shaughnessy."

Anonymous said...

yesterday I was in Skip’s office arguing over my barring and he said Devore had never been barred ever
we know that’s not true, just ask Norma Jean

Anonymous said...

AND AWAY WE GO. HOW SWEET IT IS. THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT.

Dag said...

Two Jackie Gleasons don't make a Judy Garland. I know that. Rachel tried showing me how to make one, and you need more than whatever is found over the rainbow to pull it off. Though there does seems to be everything of the rainbow on the corner outside the building at Carnegie. Good luck anyway.