Thursday afternoon at around 4 p.m. several fire trucks and two HAZMAT Unit trucks arrived at the Lori Krill Housing Co-operative on Cordova near Carroll on the Downtown Eastside. Residents left their apartments and clustered outside. The man on the right in the above photo said he would never leave his apartment again for a fire alarm; he was annoyed that he had been standing on the street for some time and firemen wouldn't allow him back into his apartment.
Firemen and police were tight-lipped about what had happened. One man walking past on the sidewalk joked, "I wonder whose meth lab it was." A resident of Lori Krill said that they have been making an effort to "get the druggies out" of the building.The photographer who gave the DTES Enquirer the above photos said that the Vancouver Fire Department's Co-ordinator of the Hazmat exercise, Dan McClelland, requested that photos not be taken. The photographer had heard the resident on the right of the top photo complain to McClelland. McClelland claimed that residents wanted "privacy". The photographer responded that it is a "Charter right" to take photos on a public sidewalk -- and then took McClelland's photo.
5 comments:
The hazmat crew found nothing and everyone was allowed to return to the building.
The photographer was actually standing in an open street when the last photo was taken, and was lucky not to have been hit by a car.
Taking photographs of a public event is one thing. Sneaking up behind private citizens to eavesdrop on their conversations is another. If you're going to pretend to be journalists, perhaps acting like journalists would be in order.
anonymous,
The photographer and a witness have been asked about your comment. Here's what we learned:
The street was blocked off when the photos were being taken.
The photographer was obviously standing just inches from the fireman when his photo was taken; he was in the street along with the photographer and police could not have been too worried about being hit by a car. There was no traffic yet allowed as the fire trucks had not left. The tent for hazardous materials was still lying in the street in front of the Lore Krill building as it had just been taken down.
Your claim that the photographer was sneaking up on people to eavesdrop is yet another uninformed comment. The man in the right of the top photo spoke directly to the photographer and another man standing at the scene when he made his comment about never leaving his apartment again for firemen. A man who said that there was an attempt to get the "druggies" out of the building also spoke directly to the photographer; they have spoken to one another before in the neighborhood.
An ad hominem comment left by anonymous was deleted.
I delete things that are off-topic, even if they might otherwise be sane and even sensible. If it's not on-topic it takes away other readers' time and energy. It might seem mean-spirited to the commentator who spent hours pecking away at the keys to post some ranting lunacy of his own making, but then there is kind consideration of the general readership who shouldn't have to be bothered by blathering nonsense if one has a blog that one comes to for sensible information and insight. So, in short, I'm favorable to your decision in favor of deletion, for what that's worth.
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