Vancouver Police Ignore Assault on Christian at Christmas

Matthew Lee, and a group of Christians paid $75 for a permit to preach at Cambie & Hastings in downtown Vancouver at Christmas time.  A passerby who disapproved of their preaching shoved Mathew down onto the sidewalk, knocking out two of his front teeth.

Matthew and the witnesses had a detailed description of the suspect for the Vancouver Police, including the fact that he was dressed in black and wearing a band across his forehead that read, "Resistance".  But police seemed indifferent.  They didn't take a report.  They simply told Matthew to, "stay out of the vicinity."  Matthew actually lives in the vicinity, in a bachelor suite in the old Woodwards building.

Matthew is a mix of Asian and native, and he said the man who assaulted him was native.

Neither myself or other bloggers know Matthew well, but he's been around for years and has never come across as aggressive.  He also works for the BC Lions, looking after their uniforms.

Stephen Harper has set up an office to deal with religious persecution around the world, a move that is largely believed to be a response to recent attacks on Christians.

It's time Chief Chu sent an officer over to the Woodwards building to assure Matthew that this assault will be investigated.

Women Arrested for Scratching and Hitting Pedestrians

A twenty-something woman was drunk late Thursday afternoon and was scratching and hitting pedestrians at Main & Hastings.  She was arrested on Hastings next to the Royal Bank.

At least seven uniformed police officers, two on bicycles, arrived at the scene, along with two paramedics.  There was a police paddy wagon and one ambulance.

The woman arrested was native, slim, with shoulder length brown hair.

VPD Assault 65 yr. old Woman Over Eight Cent Tomato

Years ago, a native guy told me, "People think the police are goody goody but they're not, you know." After living for years on the Downtown Eastside, I do know. I have seen enough to know that the police are abusive with Downtown Eastsiders. Here's a message we got from Audrey Laferriere, a Downtown Eastsider who ran in the last civic election and got a lot of votes for an independent:

"You might want to write up about what happened to me on Saturday at 5:00 p.m. But first phone Sunrise-Soya to confirm. I was beat up by the security guard for Sunrise and the VPD for alledgedly stealing a eight cent tomato. I might have just forgotten what happened if it wasn't for the fact that I am still in pain from the use of excessive force by the authorities. After the police harmed me, charged me for theft, then after they searched me they found the receipt for eight cents. I am an old woman (65) and I do not appreciate being treated like a rag doll being flung in a backroom against a mountain of produce boxes over a eight cent tomato. And the worse part was no one apologized after the incident."

Don't Cut Cops on Street, Cut VPD Mega Media Relations Department, says Eby

The Vancouver Police have announced they will avoid filling 35 positions due to the City's budget shortfall. That will mean 35 fewer constables on the street and longer response times.

David Eby of the BC Civil Liberties Association says there is no need for cuts to result in fewer constables on the street. Eby told CBC Radio last week that the Vancouver Police Department could first look at cutting their Media Relations department which is bigger than that of the City of Vancouver. The VPD media relations department, Eby said, is twice the size of the public relations departments in other organizations their size. Eby also pointed out that the VPD has an executive with an average salary of $182,000, another place that could withstand cuts.

I would add one thing: the reason the VPD needs such a monstrous media relations department is that they promote officers to six figure executive positions despite records of unprofessional and/or criminal conduct, officers who are at risk of re-offending. Take Warren Lemcke. There is documented evidence linking Lemcke to a political psychiatry scam, involving fraud and later destruction of evidence. After the evidence surfaced, Lemcke was allowed to personally decide whether the investigation into himself would proceed. He decided to cancel it. He was then promoted twice, first to Inspector and then to Superintendent. He's now well ensconced in the VPD Six Figure Club. He's even paraded in front of media cameras as head of "Con Air".

It's this constant covering for cops with questionable records by the VPD that requires a mega 'spin' department.

Vancouver Police Stop Fundraising for United Way, a Year after Giving them a Harley

Photo: This photo was taken when a swarm of police officers on motorbikes stopped on Main St. What was the incident? They had to pick up their order from the SUBmarine sandwich shop. Two officers put the boxes of food in the trunk of a police car travelling with the motorcycles.

Vancouver Police have decided not to fund raise for United Way this year.

Canadians Opposing Political Psychiatry were informed of this decision after writing to the Vancouver Police Board on Sept. 22/09 requesting that they put an end to Vancouver Police fundraising for United Way. Initially, COPP received an email from Rachelle Radiuk, Executive Director of the Police Board, stating that the request would be discussed in camera by the Police Board at their next meeting on October 21, 2009. But on Thursday, October 1, 2009, COPP received a second email from Radiuk stating:“I just received a copy of a letter sent from the Vancouver Police Union to the United Way confirming that the Union would NOT be participating in United Way fundraising this year as they will be promoting their own charity….”

For years, COPP has been criticizing the conflict of interest inherent in the role of Vancouver Police as a fundraising arm of a private charitable organization which they could be called upon at any time to investigate. United Way has even gotten onto the police payroll in that officers can opt for payroll deductions for United Way. COPP alleges that this conflict of interest relationship has resulted in police employing tactics including fabrication of evidence, illicit accessing of medical records, and political psychiatry, while under pressure from United Way to deter criticism.

Conflict of interest in the VPD's relationship with United Way was in evidence as recently as last year as COPP continued efforts to have this illegal activity addressed. In 2008, one of Chief Chu's aids called such efforts "vindictive" in a letter to a COPP member, a response to a letter addressed specifically to Chief Chu. At the same time, Chief Chu was arranging to give a decommissioned VPD Harley-Davidson motorcycle to United Way as a gift. City records show that the Chief personally lobbied the City to get this gift approved.

Three Car Collision at Main & 1st Ave.

At roughly 2:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, there was a collision involving three vehicles -- two red and one blue in the photo above -- on Main St. at 1st Avenue just past Burger King. (The date stamp on my camera wasn't set so the date on the photos is wrong.)

There did not appear to be life-threatening injuries.

Downtown Eastsider who sent Obama a Threatening Letter Arrested

Photo: George stands in front of the UBC Learning Exchange. He asked a Downtown Eastsider with a camera to take this photo; I think it was taken in early 2009 but I haven't had a chance to talk to the photographer. George was wearing his Alaska t-shirt but did not yet have his Sarah Palin glasses.

I asked Dale, a homeless guy with a shopping cart who hangs out in front of McDonalds restaurant at Terminal & Main, where George was. "You know George, the guy who wears the navy blue t-shirt with FBI on the front," I said, prompting Dale's memory. "The cops picked him up," said Dale who used to sleep in the same spot as George under a bridge. "He was threatening people."

Don't get me wrong, George wasn't threatening his friends and acquaintances around the Downtown Eastside. He was actually quite affable, always quick to call out, "Hi!"

Downtown Eastsiders had cautioned George, who was a fixture around the Downtown Eastside with his shopping cart -- "my carriage," he called it -- that he couldn't go around threatening people. You just can't send President Obama a letter warning him,"You're dead", he was told when he showed the letter with the fax receipt stapled to it. You can get arrested for that; you can do jail time, people warned him. But George would remind people of the reason he was immune from prosecution. "I'm George Washington incarnate."

George had recently been notified that he had inherited money from his half-brother. He showed the will to people on Whopper Wednesday at Burger King, and at other places too; it had an official red seal in the upper corner. He said that when he got the inheritance, "I want to get a room in a rooming house." On the front page of the will was the name of a Montreal law firm, along with their address and telephone number. George said he phoned them and threatened them.

Long before George learned of his inheritance or threatened Obama, he had been regularly dropping into the University of British Columbia Learning Exchange on Main St. near Keefer to use the free phone. He would phone the Canadian Security Intelligence Service [CSIS] and threaten to bomb them. Once CSIS returned the call and spoke to a staff person at the Learning Exchange, according to George. The staff person told George not to use their phone again.

But George needed access to a telephone on another day, so he told staff at the Learning Exchange that he just needed to make a quick call. He made it quick, the call to CSIS, threatening them.

UBC Learning Exchange staff banned George from the premises. I know that because I was walking past with a couple of friends in the spring when George, standing out front on the sidewalk, asked a woman with us if she would do him a favor and go inside and fill up his coffee cup. The Learning Exchange provides free low quality coffee to attract the poor, keep the sign-in numbers up, and keep the funders believing they are helping ahelluvalot of down and outters turn their lives around.

UBC President Stephen Toope who helped himself to $565,000 in income and perks last year will never mention George, the guy they kicked to the curb. All the networking these UBC povertarians do at their catered openings and socials at the Learning Exchange -- Toope gave a speech at one last November -- you would think they would have a few names in their Rolodex like homeless advocate Judy Graves to call and ask, "Is there anything you can do here?"

Standing on the sidewalk out front of the UBC Learning Exchange, George was always friendly, stopping people to chat, most recently about his new Sarah Palin rimless glasses that he got a kick out of wearing with his Alaska t-shirt. Dionne, the Learning Exchange Co-ordinator, a white woman who likes to remind people that's she's really Black -- a sort of Michael Jackson in reverse -- would stand just feet from him when she ducked outside to stand in the sunshine on her breaks, taking long drags from her cigarrette, escaping into her novel.

"They were looking for him," Dale said. Vancouver Police spotted George standing with Dale last month on Hastings St. across from the First United Church. They grabbed him. They told him they were sending him back to where he'd come from; George had always claimed he had been born in the U.S. and had Canadian status. The police took the cheap handcuffs George carried with him -- he claimed to be an under cover FBI agent, which would explain the handcuffs -- and handcuffed his shopping cart to Dale's, creating a headache for Dale. The police told George, "You've been threatening people," Dale recalls. "The cops were laughing at him."

Chief Chu, Don't Cancel Tickets Issued to Sidewalk Bicyclists

Just when the VPD finally did something to deter bicycling on the sidewalk, Downtown Eastside activists are lobbying the VPD to cancel tickets for that and other "nuisance" offences such as jaywalking and illegal street vending.

Activists claim the VPD unfairly targeted the Downtown Eastside last winter for ticketing. They're probably right. I had never seen a bicylist on the sidewalk ticketed until I saw it on March 17, 2009 at Abbott & Carroll. I was so surprised that I stopped to snap the above photo of it. I heard a male cop tell the male bicyclist that he was getting a ticket of $109 for riding on the sidewalk and $29 for riding without a helmet.

VPD Chief Jim Chu denies police specifically targeted the Downtown Eastside for ticketing last winter, but he's promising a decision on the request for cancellations will be made by the next police board meeting July 15th.

Chief Chu, don't cancel tickets issued to sidewalk bicyclists.

Instead, step up ticketing of bicyclists on sidewalks in other neighbourhoods, especially up Main St. where the bicyclists ride fast, sometimes directly into crowds of people waiting for the bus at rush hour. Bicylists on the sidewalk are a real menace. What always amazes me as I walk up Main St. by the sky train station is how they gear up with helmets -- helmets are less common on the Downtown Eastside -- and other equipment so that they are safe as they weave around the spines of pedestrians.

One reason activists say the tickets should be cancelled is that it takes people 11 months to maneouver through the court system. No mention of the pedestrian who manoeuvers through a lifetime with a spinal injury.

I'm tired of sidewalk cylists hiding behind a veil of green. They're dangerous.

Gang Unit Searches Vehicle near Richards on Richards Nightclub

   

On Friday, Mar. 6 at 2 a.m., the Gang Unit stopped the white vehicle in the photo above on Richards St. near Nelson, on the same block as Richards on Richards nightclub.  They handcuffed the passengers, both men and women, and searched the car.   

Before searching, a middle-aged officer turned to the passengers now sitting on the sidewalk and asked if they knew of anything he was going to find in the vehicle.  They said no.  The officer did not appear to find anything. 

The Gang Unit travels in black SUVs.

The officer standing in the center of the above photo watching the passengers seated on the sidewalk, attempted with his arm to wave away the photographer standing on the other side of the street. Shortly afterwards, the officer turned around and said, "Please put your camera away."

A complaint the public is often heard making is that there is too much respect for the Charter rights of gang members.  Apparently there is not enough for the Charter rights of photographers.   

Collision at Main St. & Georgia Viaduct

There was a two car collision at roughly 5 p.m. today on Main St. at Prior St., just across the street from the entrance to the Georgia Viaduct.  

There appeared to be no serious injuries.

Woman "Beaten Up" at No. 5 Orange

A woman was assaulted at the No. 5 Orange Showroom Pub on Wednesday night around 11:15 p.m. A twenty-something male witness standing on the sidewalk outside the No. 5 at Main & Powell St. on the Downtown Eastside said the woman had been "beaten up". A female standing with him agreed, saying, "I know her".

Eight to ten police cars, a few of them unmarked, along with a police paddy wagon were parked outside the No. 5 after the incident. One of the police vehicles was a black SUV that a Downtown Eastside resident said he recognized as belonging to the Gang Unit. He also said he had seen one officer at the scene carrying "a bean bag gun". The Gang Unit has identified the No. 5 Orange as an establishment that they keep an eye on.

Police officer speaks to the male suspect in the paddy wagon.

The alleged victim was sitting in the back of this police car "giving a statement" to police, according to a man standing on the sidewalk with a woman who said she knew the victim.

The female police officer with blond hair holding a plastic bag pictured above walked over to the photographer and said politely, "You can't take pictures here", when the photographer was standing on the sidewalk taking a shot of the paddy wagon with the open door. That photo is posted above. There was no yellow tape around the area and the photographer was standing about six feet back on the sidewalk where pedestrians were allowed to walk freely. The photographer then moved to other areas of the scene to take photos and the officer didn't interfere.

Several police officers search the suspect's vehicle in the No. 5 Orange parking lot.

Woman Jumps from 7th Floor of Regent Hotel

The word on the Downtown Eastside is that a woman jumped from the 7th floor inside the Regent Hotel this afternoon. That's the hotel in the background of the above photo with red vertical lettering.

The woman whose boyfriend had reportedly hanged himself recently, died from her injuries.

One Downtown Eastsider said of people on the sidewalk outside the hotel, "Everybody was looking up."

We haven't confirmed that a woman jumped but two police cars and a ghost car were outside the Regent. Not just constables but a couple of higher ranking police officers were there as well. And an ambulance, we were told, had been at the scene earlier and ambulance attendants had gone inside the hotel.

A constable was questioning a civilian. You can see that if you look closely in the background of this photo, just below the Union Market sign.

At the Sally Ann soup line on Sunday night, a man was talking about the jumper at the Regent. He said that one under reported story is the number of people jumping from the Washington Hotel. One woman he said jumped but didn't die and is now a parapalegic.

Fraudulent Evidence Found In United Way Police Complaint

A Vancouver woman feels upset every time she sees United Way Campaign commercials claiming that donations will be used to promote “respect” in the community. If United Way values respect, she says, why haven’t they helped get fake evidence attached to her name in police files expunged. The fake evidence, she says, appears in a Vancouver Police report dated Dec. 18, 2002, written after Ron Dumouchelle, then Executive Director of United Way of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland lodged a police complaint against her.

Dumouchelle wanted police to pressure the Vancouver woman -- we'll call her “the whistleblower” -- to suppress a Report on United Way to which she and others had contributed and were making available to major donors. Dumouchelle stated in an internal document dated the week police were called that if donors got even a “whiff” of this report, donations to United Way could be affected.

Even after Constable J.P. St. Amant admitted in his police report that he and Dumouchelle were aware that this case was “not a criminal matter” but a civil matter, the police report reveals that Dumouchelle continued to pressure police to make contact with the whistleblower.

The whistleblower believes that the VPD, who fundraise for United Way and appear in their newspaper advertisements, were performing a favor for United Way. Certainly it was acknowledged in the police report that Dumouchelle had recruited police to visit the whistleblower because civil court wouldn’t be quick enough for him. And police did not follow the usual procedure of entering, at the top of the police report, the alleged “OFFENCE” being investigated; that section was left blank.

The first visit by police to the whistleblower's home occurred on Dec. 18, 2002, the day police reported taking "oral statements" from Dumouchelle and "witnesses" guaranteed anonymity at United Way Campaign headquarters on Dunsmuir St. in Vancouver. When Constables Lee Patterson [PC 2125] and J.P. St. Amant [PC 2010] arrived at the apartment of the whistleblower, she says, they pounded on her apartment door until the entire wood-framed building shook. "They scared my neighbors and damaged my reputation," she says. Const. St. Amant later left the woman a voice mail, which she has preserved, denying that he and Patterson had acted aggressively at her home.

After this visit, Dumouchelle told Const. St. Amant, according to the Dec. 19 police report, that he was “satisfied with police attention to date” – yet the police report shows that he continued to lean on police for over a week to have further contact with the whistleblower.

The report that United Way wanted suppressed contained information about alleged practices in United Way member groups that several women and men wanted funders to put a stop to. The report focused primarily on allegations against a battered women’s organization, allegations such as unfair labour practices and course entry requirements that differed for different applicants.

Dumouchelle was feeling the heat. He revealed in an internal document dated Dec. 2002 that he had been contacted by the Canadian Labour Congress and a few corporate donors about the Report on UW. It was then that he asked police to press the whistleblower to take out of circulation a form letter which offered the Report on UW to major donors. Dumouchelle noted in an internal document that he wanted this material out of circulation as United Way was facing a Campaign shortfall of $600,000 and was asking corporate donors for a top up.

Evidence Fabrication and Misrepresentation
After reviewing the police report, the whistleblower lodged a written complaint in 2003 to the Board of Directors of United Way in which she outlined evidence that had been fabricated. Shortly afterwards, Dumouchelle resigned as Executive Director – no reason given publicly. But United Way “has done nothing in five years”, says the whistleblower, to have the libelous material attached to her name expunged from police files.

Following is a sampling of falsified or misrepresented evidence:

paranoid in nature
In his Dec. 18th report written after his briefing by Dumouchelle and anonymous witnesses, Const. Patterson claimed that the Report on UW was "paranoid in nature". The DTES Enquirer reviewed the report and found nothing that could be considered paranoid. As evidence of paranoid content, Patterson claimed that the whistleblower had discussed lesbian "couch-trip" practices, "cult-like practices", and "comparisons" with the case of serial killing accomplice Karla Homolka. These claims are examined below as part of a sampling of evidence in the police report that the whistleblower alleges is "clearly fabricated or misleading".

lesbian “couch-trip” practices
Const. Patterson wrote that the whistleblower had written about lesbian “couch-trip” practices in the UW Report. "Outright fraud", says the whistleblower. The term “couch trip” had appeared nowhere in the Report on UW. Yet the term “couch trip” was presented in quotation marks in the police report and identified as a direct quote from the UW Report. The whistleblower has no idea what a “couch trip” is.

“cult-like practices”
The whistleblower was presented in the police report as having gone on in the Report on UW about “cult-like practices” at the battered women’s organization. Perfect for portraying her as a nut. What was conveniently concealed in the police report, though, was the fact that it was clearly stated in the Report on UW that it was an anthropologist from Simon Fraser University who had identified a few practices at the battered women’s organization as being typical of cults – not the whistleblower.

The anthropologist had been particularly concerned about rules in support groups which restricted the flow of information, rules enforced through an explicit threat of being ostracized from the group – literally being asked to leave – for non-compliance. The rules tended to maximize the number of women and non-violent men labeled “battered women” and “batterer”.
The issue of “cult-like practices” actually occupied a small sector of the 16-page report. The fact that this quote was excerpted and magnified in importance was typical, says the whistleblower, of the “tabloid" nature of the police report.

“mentions Homolka case and comparisons”
Another deceptive claim inserted in Patterson's police report on the day he met with Dumouchelle was the following: "mentions Homolka case and comparisons." A review of the Report on UW reveals no "comparisons" whatsoever with the case of Homolka, who was convicted of being an accomplice to her husband in serial killings.

Although the claim of “comparisons” was a complete fabrication, the whistleblower points out that the Homolka case was actually mentioned in the Report on UW. But in the police report, it was stripped of it’s original context, she says, “conveniently making me look like some kind of nut fixated on the Homolka case.” The context was this: An administrator at a battered women’s organization funded by United Way had appeared on BCTV prime time News Hour and performed an assessment of Karla Homolka, clearing her of all wrongdoing. The conduct of this administrator so outraged British Columbians that BCTV announced that their switchboard had been jammed with complaints, prompting them to re-play a segment of the interview on the next evening’s News Hour. The taped BCTV appearance was mentioned in the Report on UW as a tangible illustration of an issue raised in the report – the issue of this administrator consistently presenting herself “in the guise of a psychological professional” when in fact she had no such credentialing.

Neither this administrator or her United Way funders would answer questions about what this administrator’s credentials actually were. In an internal United Way document dated Dec. 2002, though, this administrator was referred to as a “library technician”.

“sexual under tones of lesbian controlled supervisors"
Despite the fact that the bulk of the Report on UW focused on unfair labor practices and fluctuating course entry requirements, it was summarized by Const. Patterson in the police report as having "sexual under tones."

At another point, the report was identified as containing "sexual under tones of lesbian controlled supervisors". The whistleblower insists there was no claim made in the Report on UW that supervisors at the battered women's organization were "controlled" by lesbians. She says there was a segment of the Report on UW which outlined allegations of discrimination against heterosexual women, primarily in hiring, by the lesbian administration of the battered women's organization. United Way never discussed accounts of discrimination with witnesses who were in a position to corroborate them.

The whistleblower says that the salacious entry about "sexual under tones of lesbian controlled supervisors" was typical of the "tabloid journalism" that passed for evidence-documenting in this case.

“requesting $525 compensation for her 16 page report.”
Even the content of a form letter announcing that the Report on UW was available to major donors was blatantly falsified in the police report. An announcement in the form letter that the report was available for a fee of “$25 to cover labour costs” was misrepresented in the police report as “requesting $525 compensation for her 16 page report.” (The date on the form letter was correctly identified in the police report.) The inflation by $500 of this fee on a page of the police report in which the Report on UW was being portrayed as “paranoid in nature” served to enhance the portrayal of the whistleblower as a crackpot.

“paranoid letters” to “undisclosed workers”
Patterson also wrote in his report that the whistleblower had been writing “paranoid letters” to “undisclosed workers”. The whistleblower alleges that this claim is fraudulent. Certainly no such letters were filed in the VPD Property Office. "That’s because they don’t exist", says the whistleblower. No "undisclosed workers" were ever identified either. The whistleblower had one contact person at United Way, Zena Simces, who answered to Dumouchelle. Simces had assured the whistleblower via voice mail that she did not view her communication as harassing and that United Way welcomed her feedback. Simces was conspicuously absent from the police report.

“concerned for the safety of employees” (a claim which was retracted the same day)
On Dec. 18th, Cst. Patterson claimed in his report the reason for the police visit to United Way was, “DUMOUCHELLE…is concerned for safety of Employees.” Yet this claim was retracted just hours later. During follow-up questioning the same day, Const. Patterson got Dumouchelle to acknowledge that safety “is not perceived as an issue.” Dumouchelle further admitted, according to Patterson’s report, that there had been “no threat (direct or indirect) involving physical harm or property damage.” In fact, in the police report which was absurdly redundant, Dumouchelle admitted on 15 separate occasions during questioning either in person or over the telephone that the whistleblower posed “no physical risk”.

Not only is it clear from Const. Patterson’s report that Dumouchelle had not been “concerned for safety of Employees”, it is evident as well from the report of Const. St. Amant. Just as he had admitted to Patterson, Dumouchelle admitted to St. Amant, who often spoke to him separately on the telephone, that he had no safety concerns. On the day after police met with Dumouchelle and showed up on the whistleblower’s doorstep, Const. St. Amant wrote:
“PC 2010 contacted DUMOUCHELLE via telephone and informed of contacting [whistleblower] ….Dumouchelle satisfied with police attention to date… PC 2010 was informed that no employee has been threatened, observed or met [whistleblower] ….”

The fact that the story about being “concerned for the safety of employees” was bogus is supported by a voice mail message that the whistleblower preserved from Dumouchelle’s assistant Zena Simces. Simces, whom Dumouchelle had assigned to be the contact person on issues of concern regarding the battered women’s organization, encouraged the whistleblower to continue to have contact with United Way.

“no improprieties found”
United Way had, at one point, invited a mediator to resolve complaints against the battered women’s organization. Following a conversation with Dumouchelle on Dec. 21, 2002, Const. St. Amant claimed in the police report that mediation had resulted in “no improprieties found.”

The whistleblower says that's not the story she got from the mediator. The mediator had telephoned the whistleblower and said that the battered women’s organization was not co-operating with mediation. The mediator reported that the battered women’s organization had been making excuses, over a period of months, not to meet with her and would not comply with the terms of mediation. One of the terms was that each side would send just one representative to mediation; the battered women’s organization insisted on having up to 7 people in the room, including a lawyer.

The whistleblower found United Way cagey after the mediator dropped the case. The whistleblower asked Zena Simces for a copy of anything written by the mediator. Despite two promises, Simces was not forthcoming with the material.

"acknowledges being in an abusive relationship"
The entry "acknowledges being in an abusive relationship", unlike the others listed above, was not false, but United Way had breached confidentiality by linking the whistleblower's name to this information. "I was shocked to see this being used against me in a police report," says the whistleblower.

The whistleblower had attended confidential support groups at the battered women's organization years earlier when she was leaving an abusive relationship. But her name, like the names of other women who had attended support groups and were witnesses to activities at the battered women's organization were withheld in the Report on UW, other than "Cindi" who did not have a problem with her given name being used. A Collective, not an individual, was identified on the cover of the Report on UW as having authored it.

Request for Criminal Investigation into United Way and Several Major Donors
The whistleblower has never been told the names of anonymous witnesses who, according to Constable Patterson's Dec. 18 report, met with police at United Way Campaign headquarters: "PC's 2010/2125 met with witnesses and complainant at 777 Dunsmuir..." Later on the same page of the police report, though, Patterson entered the names of several major United Way donors as witnesses in the case:

· Canadian Red Cross
· Revenue Canada
· Canada Post
· Toronto Dominion Bank
· Westminster Savings
· Canada Safeway

In requesting a public mischief investigation into this case, the whistleblower named the above-listed donors along with United Way and Dumouchelle. These donors were presented in the police report as witnesses based on the fact that they had obtained copies of circulating documents — a Report on UW or a form letter making the report available. Documents collected from them were later turned over to the VPD “harassment unit”, as indicated by the Dec. 29 police report. [This process may have been interrupted by a ‘Cease & Desist” letter sent to St. Amant’s supervisor, Sgt. Hatchman, as the Dec. 29th page would be the final one in the police report.]

In addition to an investigation into donors, the whistleblower had wanted an investigation into the role, if any, of the national United Way of Canada in the lodging of the “mischievous” police complaint . A letter exists to support the whistleblower’s claim that Executive Director, David Armour, became aware of this case shortly before the police complaint was lodged.

Despite Inspector John De Haas of the VPD having telling the whistleblower that she was entitled to request a public mischief investigation if a police complaint lodged against her had been unfounded and involved fabricated evidence, no investigation took place. When she requested the investigation, she got a call from Sergeant Warren Lemecke making excuses to stall it (an issue to be covered in a separate article).

PART II: United Way and VPD face allegations of further retaliation against the whistleblower based on the ordering of a VPD "Car 87" visit to her home after she put on record her intent to seek a criminal “Public Mischief” investigation.
Canadians Opposing Political Psychiatry have labelled this alleged retaliation, “political psychiatry”. The whistleblower has documented evidence to support her claim that the Car 87 visit was ordered under “fraudulent pretenses”. For Part II, see United Way Implicated in Political Psychiatry

Evidence-tampering in CUPE police complaint

CUPE members in Vancouver are on strike and a stench can be detected. It is not the stench of garbage left uncollected, it is the stench of CUPE's dirty laundry.

A former secretary to two CUPE Presidents is talking.

The secretary continues to talk about the police complaint CUPE lodged against her after she complained of the "non-union sweatshop" they were quietly operating at Local 116 at UBC. VPD Constables Megan Herrmann and Kevin Ng -- who don't have jurisdiction at UBC -- left voice mail and showed up at her home. Their message: muzzle yourself about unfair labour practices inside CUPE.

When the secretary got a copy of the police report, she was shocked to discover that letters she had sent to CUPE President Barry O'Neill and BC Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair about unfair labor practices inside CUPE had been submitted as "evidence". Copies of these letters were enclosed with the police report. This fact has been discussed in a previous post, "CUPE Strike Haunted by Secretary Scandal". What is new is that the DTES Enquirer has learned that the police report pertaining to the CUPE complaint was retroactively altered roughly a year after the case had been labelled "CLOSED".

The alteration of the police report occurred after the whistleblowing secretary contacted CUPE President, Barry O'Neill, and BC Federation of Labour President, Jim Sinclair, in writing in 2003. She informed O'Neill and Sinclair that as long as the unfounded "WORKPLACE HARASSMENT" notation remained adjacent to her name in police records, she would ensure that it remained on their public records as union leaders. Speaking up about workplace conditions did not constitute "WORKPPLACE HARASSMENT", she reminded them. It was then that the term "WORKPLACE" disappeared from the police report -- even though the case had been labelled CLOSED by the VPD the previous year. The secretary doesn't know who changed the "offence" for which she was investigated but she can prove that it was changed in the police file long after the case had been closed.

It was quite by accident that the secretary stumbled upon the change. It was when she received documents from a second Freedom of Information request, that she noticed that the Vancouver Police had retroactively changed the offence for which she had been investigated. The offence was changed from "WORKPLACE HARASSMENT" to "HARASSMENT/ OBSCENE COMMUNICATION". She suspects that the term "WORKPLACE" was dropped as a form of damage control, to reduce potential embarrassment to union leaders -- but she can't prove it.

What she can prove is that there was nothing harassing or obscene about her communication with labor leaders. Her letters, which remain on file at the VPD Property Office, can be used to confirm this. "What was obscene about this situation was the way people who worked for CUPE were treated", she says.

The fact that the whistle blowing secretary had been investigated for the specific offence of “WORKPLACE HARASSMENT” and not "HARASSMENT/ OBSCENE COMMUNICATION cannot be disputed. "WORKPLACE HARASSMENT" is clearly typed at the top of the police report she obtained through Freedom of Information shortly after CUPE called police on her. And the fact that the case had been "CLOSED" in Dec. 2002 is also typed on the police report. Further, the DTES woman has preserved correspondence from the VPD informing her that the “WORKPLACE HARASSMENT” notation would remain on the police PRIME data base permanently. It did remain on the police data base until after she contacted O'Neill and Sinclair in 2003, after which time the "WORKPLACE" angle for which she had been investigated disappeared.

The whistle blowing secretary sees this retroactive alteration of an investigated "offence" in a closed police file as a form of evidence- tampering. She speculates that it may have been prompted by the fact that she was requesting a criminal investigation into labor leaders involved in this case. It was "no secret", she says, that she wanted union leaders criminally investigated for public mischief for lodging what she considered to be an unfounded police complaint. [Context: When CUPE lodged their complaint in Dec. 2002, the lodging of unfounded criminal complaints to silence vocal Downtown Eastside residents was an epidemic problem. Inspector John de Haas stated in one case involving the Vancouver School Board that bureaucrats lodging unfounded police complaints against political adversaries could justifiably face "public mischief" investigations, if a victims requested them. An advocate on the Downtown Eastside was advising residents to seek public mischief investigations in such cases.]

The whistleblowing secretary says CUPE and police were well aware that she had never visited or telephoned her CUPE "WORKPLACE" after leaving her job there. There was no workplace harassment and that fact was just too obvious so, in her view, somebody arranged for the "WORKPLACE" element to get retroactively disappeared. "I e-mailed Jim Sinclair in 2004 and I asked him if he had any idea who that somebody was," she says. He didn't respond. But she did preserve a copy of her e-mail to him.

There was no workplace harassment. There was no harassment, period. That's the position of the whistleblowing secretary."I have as much right as CUPE members [currently] on strike to protest about working conditions."

Olympics "Civil City Slam" marred by hypocrisy

In Vancouver you will find sailing, hiking, skiing. And fighting. Vancouverites are fighting over preparations for the 2010 Winter Olympics, preparations that involve efforts to curb aggressive panhandling, sleeping, crack smoking, pissing and even shitting on the streets by Vancouver’s underclass.

On the right is Mayor Sam Sullivan. Sullivan introduced “Project Civil City” earlier this year to curb “public disorder” in Vancouver. The Civil City initiative, the Mayor has officially announced, will target homelessness, the open drug market, aggressive panhandling, and will attempt to increase satisfaction with how public nuisance complaints are handled.

On the left is Member of Parliament Libby Davies and others she refers to as “progressive electeds” and activists. The left takes the position that the Mayor’s Civil City erodes civil liberties of the poor and addresses symptoms of poverty rather than underlying causes.

On Tuesday evening, representatives of Vancouver’s left came together in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the poorest neighbourhood in Canada, to criticize the Mayor’s Project Civil City. They called the event, “Civil City Slam”.

The Forum was chaired by Libby Davies, known simply as “Libby” by many on the Downtown Eastside where low income people vote for this federal politician en masse. Davies told the crowd in the church auditorium that Project Civil City will hurt the poor while making Vancouver “squeaky clean” for the Olympics.

In the leaflet widely distributed to advertise the Civil City Slam, a column by left-leaning Allan Garr in the Vancouver Courier newspaper was re-printed. Garr had mentioned this month’s visit by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin to address the Vancouver Board of Trade about Atlanta’s 1996 Summer Olympics experience. Franklin admitted that Altanta had made a mistake by investing in temporary shelters to get the homeless off the streets, only to discover after the Olympics that when the shelters disappeared, the homeless reappeared. What Franklin had not spoken about though, Garr wrote, was the civil liberties mistakes made in Atlanta during the Olympics:

“What she didn’t mention was this: Before the games, Atlanta passed a half dozen laws that made it illegal to panhandle aggressively, urinate in public, lay on a park bench and - my favorite – walk across a parking lot if you don’t have a car parked there. Homeless activists in Atlanta report the laws were later thrown out. But over the course of the games, thousands of homeless men were arrested.”

Inside the Civil City Slam at First United Church there was a standing room only crowd. To get in though, you had to pass a man on the steps handing out literature accusing Israel of apartheid, and a woman at the door of the auditorium with a table of literature which included Anti-Poverty Committee leaflets accusing Olympic Committee director, Ken Dobell, of being a “capitalist hog”.

David Eby: civil liberties abuses could result from changes ranging from new police powers to charge civilians and a “broad interpretation” of who is sufficiently mentally ill to be institutionalized

One of the first speakers was David Eby, a tall, thin, young lawyer with light brown curly hair who works for Pivot Legal Society. Eby mentioned media reports that City Councilors and Olympic Committee directors are feeling threatened by the Anti-Poverty Committee which recently stated an intent to evict Olympic Committee directors from their comfortable offices and homes, just as poor people are being evicted from their homes during preparations for the Olympics. (The APC had just hours earlier carried out an eviction by trashing the Vancouver office of Olympic Committee director Ken Dobell, within the Canada Place offices of Premier Gordon Campbell.) Eby pointed out that for the Olympic Committee, “the biggest threat to what they have planned is meetings like this.”

Eby said he has already noticed an erosion of civil liberties on the Downtown Eastside as the City prepares for the Olympics. He mentioned the raid on the offices of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association by police searching for the stolen Olympic flag, even though another organization had taken credit for stealing it.

Regular reports by Downtown Eastside residents of getting “jacked up” are another sign in Eby’s view, that civil liberties are being eroded as Vancouver gears up for the Olympics. Eby explained that each pair of police officers working the streets of the Downtown Eastside is expected to meet a daily quota of civilians they have had a conversation with. What that conversation entails, he said, is taking the person’s name and running it through the police computer system for no reason. These quotas work out to 303 people being stopped a day on the Downtown Eastside. That’s “the kind of civil society” the neighborhood is being subjected to. If you do the math, Eby explained, it works out to every resident of the Downtown Eastside being stopped six times a year. Eby got his point across, but the reality is that myself and my friends and acquaintances on the Downtown Eastside not involved in street life are not finding ourselves randomly stopped by police.

Eby says Project Civil City is bringing in a “No sit, no lie” bylaw. Anyone who walks around Vancouver knows who this bylaw is aimed at: the homeless who sleep for hours on benches and sidewalks both day and night. But Eby says that even people who hang around on a park bench can be targeted.

Project Civil City will also tackle aggressive panhandling, the open drug market, and public nuisance complaints, according to Eby, by allowing police to directly lay charges. Previously Vancouver Police had to wait for Crown prosecutors to approve charges. Crown prosecutors, Eby explained, tend to be more cautious than police, throwing out cases for such reasons as evidence being collected through an illegal search. Police are being given these new powers, Eby believes,“because the Crown is just getting in the way.”

Another tool police may finally be given on the Downtown Eastside is close circuit television cameras, according to Eby. Cameras to fight the open drug market and other crime have been proposed over the years by police, only to be opposed by the left wing establishment at Carnegie Centre which publishes the popular Carnegie newsletter.

“New drug treatment programs for chronic offenders”, are a specific Civil City strategy that Eby thought needed more discussion. New approaches to drug treatment will include, if Mayor Sullivan has his way, an expansion of NAOMI, a drug maintenance program on the Downtown Eastside which a couple of years ago began dispensing free heroin to addicts. But City Councilor Raymond Louie, who lent his name to the Civil City Slam brochure as an endorser, says opening a “pharmacy” for the city’s 700 chronic offenders would be irresponsible, without integrating them into the community. Eby’s concern about the focus on chronic offenders, he told spectators at the Slam, is the possibility that, “If you want to get into this innovative drug treatment, first you have to get arrested, and you probably have to plead guilty.”

Institutionalization of the very mentally ill is yet another goal of Civil City, Eby told the crowd. But here’s the problem, he said: “There is no real definition of who the very mentally ill is. I suspect there could be a very broad interpretation of that.”

When it comes to employing a very broad interpretation of mental illness for institutionalizing people, though, some of the “progressive electeds” who endorsed this Civil City Slam in promotional literature – Vancouver School Board trustees Allan Blakely and Allan Wong, for example — are in no position to point fingers.

With Blakely and Wong as trustees, the Vancouver School Board had been accused of political psychiatry, using an interpretation of mental illness broad enough to muzzle a political adversary. The Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog has obtained a police and psychiatric report in one well known case in which a political adversary was targeted by the Vancouver School Board. It was a case in which the Vancouver School Board arranged to have a Downtown Eastside resident targeted for an “assessment for apprehension” immediately after that resident expressed in writing an intent to campaign in the School Board election, then just 3 weeks away. This resident and several others on the Downtown Eastside were were fed up after independently lodging complaints against a verbally and physically abusive teacher, only to receive evasive and at times hostile responses from the VSB.

The Vancouver School Board, dominated by left wingers at the time who knew that they were about to lose their elected majority, hastily arranged to have the notorious police “Car 87” – a police car containing a constable and a psych nurse – visit and assess the prospective campaigner for “apprehension”. A letter in which the individual had stated an intent to campaign in the election, a letter which included a routine freedom of information request, was the sole evidence filed with police and the psych system to support this visit. In the accompanying psych report, nurse Don Getz entered the fact that this DTES resident had made “freedom of information requests” as the official reason for the assessment.

Just hours after the visit, VPD Sergeant Garry Lester admitted in a taped telephone conversation that he had emphasized to the VSB, when they were arranging the visit, that there was “nothing untoward” about this DTES resident’s letter.

In 2005, VSB trustees — including the few left wingers who had managed to keep their seats as trustees, Blakely (pictured left) and Wong — held an in-house review of the case and did not invite or allow input from the targeted individual. The targeted individual claims that political psychiatry instigated by the VSB shortly before the Nov. 2004 election has resulted in ongoing harassment, for which there is supporting evidence in the form of letters and voice mail from police.

Stories of political psychiatry perpetrated by members of the left wing establishment in the Downtown Eastside, which has been dubbed Canada’s “socialist experiment”, are rampant. Carnegie Centre, which sent a representative to sit on the panel of the Civil City Slam has been accused of at time favoring a politically convenient, broad interpretation, of mental illness. During a “Never trust a nurse” poster campaign on the Downtown Eastside in 2005-06 to fight alleged nurse involvement in political psychiatry, an allegation specifically against the Carnegie Street Nurse Program of collusion with political psychiatry surfaced and has yet to be resolved.

Even former mayoral candidate, Peter Haskell, recently alleged that he had become the target of psychiatric tactics at Carnegie. He told Vancouver's Republic newspaper that when he expressed opposition to user fees at Carnegie, a staff person telephoned his mother and recommended that he be put on medication.

Andy Yan: Civil City is based on the “broken windows” theory in the U.S.

Andy Yan, a chubby Chinese-Canadian man in his late twenties or early thirties, works for the Carnegie Centre Action Project which has an office on the Downtown Eastside. Yan told the crowd at the Slam that Civil City is based on the “broken windows” theory in the U.S. which Carnegie sees as the wrong approach to addressing street disorder. What has actually been proven to work in both the U.S. and Canada, Yen said, is “permanent homes as opposed to shelter beds.” He also wants welfare rates increased by 50% from current levels (the basic welfare rate has recently been raised by $100), and an elimination of barriers to getting welfare such as the 3 week waiting period. The position of the Carnegie Action Project, Yan said, is that we can “eliminate the symptom of homelessness by eliminating the causes.”

It came as no surprise to Downtown Eastside residents that Yan focused on housing for the homeless, not civil liberties for the homeless. Carnegie Action Project staff work out of the Carnegie Centre – Libby Davies’ organizing base – which has gained a reputation for trampling the civil liberties of the homeless. In January, homeless man Bill Simpson was barred from the Carnegie Learning Centre, accused of blogging about political issues at Carnegie. He was found guilty of blogging by Board members and staff during a ’star chambers’ hearing to which he was not invited.

Although Simpson’s case was the most publicized, there have been other cases of disrespect for the civil liberties of low income people at Carnegie. Staff in the Carnegie Action Project office at Carnegie called security guards on a Carnegie volunteer, Frank, and had him escorted from the premises, after he stopped by to tell Carnegie Board member Bob Sarti that it was wrong to bar Simpson for freedom of expression.

During the hunt for bloggers at Carnegie, a volunteer at Carnegie revealed that he had been questioned by Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty and Learning Centre Co-ordinator Lucy Alderson about a low income person under suspicion of blogging about Carnegie politics.

Even the Vancouver Network of Drug Users, which had a representative sit on the same panel as Carnegie at the “Civil City Slam”, had once had a lawyer threaten to take legal action against Carnegie for violating the civil liberties of marginalized people.

Sara Kendall: “racialized youth”, “neo-liberal agenda”, and other buzz words

Sara Kendall, tall, slim, with super short brown hair, a youth worker with the Vancouver Network of Drug Users – one of the groups that pushed for North America’s first Supervised Injection Site just two blocks west of First United church – also spoke on the panel at the “Slam”. But it was difficult to hear her message through her buzz words and phrases — “racialized youth”, “neo-Liberal agenda” “queer youth”, “culture of violence”. She even spoke of people “reaching out to another person from their place of need” — in plain English, that’s panhandling.

Kendall did manage to explain a form of street clearing that youth are being subjected to by police: “relocation”. That’s when police pick up a young person on the streets and drive them to another neighborhood and dump them.

Kendall identified government “cuts to public services” as part of the problem. She had worked for the City until the last election when the left wing Council lost power and the newly elected Mayor Sullivan axed her job.

Michael Vonn: “Olympics are a downhill event”

Michael Vonn – that’s a woman – Policy Director at the B.C. Civil Liberties Association also sat on the panel and told the crowd that from a civil liberties perspective, the “Olympics are a down hill event.” Vonn, in her late 30’s, slim, with shoulder length curly brown hair, announced that a stated goal of Project Civil City during Olympic preparations is to address “quality of life crimes.” “Oh please!”, she added. What the Mayor’s Civil City initiative really comes down to is “street sweeping the poor”, Vonn said.

A stated goal of Civil City is to “reduce aggressive panhandling by 50%” but, Vonn says, “we have no idea what the current base rate of aggressive panhandling is.” The same goes for homelessness and drug peddling which the goal of Civil City is to reduce by 50%. “The evidence doesn’t matter,” she told the crowd.

It’s people’s “perception of being at risk” that matters, Vonn explained. Police could potentially “charge someone for being the object of someone else’s fears.”

Apparently eager to assure the crowd that she was one of them, Vonn quipped, “Blue is not a good color on me.”

Dag Walker: “There are no consequences.”

Blue is a good color on Dag Walker who, like other members of the Vancouver Chapter of the Blue Revolution, wears a blue scarf to his meetings. Every Thursday evening Walker, in his early fifties, walks downtown to the Vancouver Public Library where their meetings are held and sees the public disorder on the streets.

Walker does agree with some issues raised at the “Civil City Slam”, like the fact that giving police power to directly lay charges is a “slippery slope”. But he also believes that leftists in Vancouver tend to downplay how serious the problem of public disorder is. “It’s out of control,” he says. People are fed up with the panhandlers who hound them day after day in coffee shops and on the streets, panhandlers whose “place of need” is, in his view, more often than not a crack addiction.

“When I was at London Drugs a few weeks ago”, he says, “somebody had shit on the sidewalk.” He actually saw it happen; a woman whom he suspects was on drugs defecated in broad daylight as pedestrians walked around her. And he points out that some streets smell like urine, “People piss everywhere.” He doesn’t share the left’s view that social conditions cause this public disorder. He attributes it to the fact that, “There are no consequences.”

Former Attorney General appointed to new position of Civil City Commissioner to tackle public disorder
It may not be a coincidence that the left held their Civil City Slam just a week after former B.C. Attorney General, Geoff Plant, was appointed to the newly created position of Civil City Commissioner in Vancouver. Plant’s appointment was seen as a coup for Mayor Sullivan but a set back for Vancouverites on the left arguing that more money for the social safety net is a solution to street disorder, not “criminalizing poverty”.

Plant’s appointment, lawyer David Eby told the crowd at the Slam, signals that Project Civil City will emphasize a “law and order” approach. But at the press conference announcing his appointment a week earlier, Plant hinted at a multi-pronged approach, “I am committed to tackling the underlying root causes of Vancouver’s challenges, while also dealing with some of the more straightforward, public disorder issues that we are experiencing.”