Murder witness caught lying

Susan Panich is a liar.

That is, if you believe the testimony of Michael Vandenaneele at the murder trial of Dennis “Rocka” Knibbs.

Michael Vandenaneele went to the New Wings Hotel to buy cocaine on the night of the shootings, April 4, 2005. Vandenaneele, a 40ish, balding man with reddish hair, dressed in a mid-blue shirt with pale green dress pants, is a former cocaine addict turned journeyman welder. Susan Panich, who lived at the New Wings Hotel at the time of the shootings, is a current cocaine addict; she told the court that she uses cocaine “every day”, and uses alcohol as well. Panich, 45 years old, scrawny, with shoulder length blond hair, testified that she was the “girlfriend” of Ian [Liscombe] – she said she didn’t know his last name -- who was shot and killed on April 4, 2005. She acknowledged that she had sold drugs with him. –

Vandenaneele knew Susan Panich from purchasing drugs from her and her associates at the New Wings: “Ian, John, Rocka, Susan, Tee, Donnie.” He added, though, that he would “often buy from Rocka”, the defendant Dennis Knibbs. The two “became good friends” and Vandenaneele would stop by the New Wings to say hello to Knibbs, “not necessarily to buy dope.” Vandenaneele also got along well with Ian [Liscombe], who “was a cousin to Rocka, he had told me”.

Vandenaneele had begun his testimony on Thursday afternoon, and was now back on the morning of Friday, April 13th to finish up. On Thursday, he had testified that when he arrived at the New Wings, he had stopped at the front office on the first floor to chat with the young desk clerk, Brett. While there, Vandenaneele witnessed Knibbs and Liscombe coming downstairs and asking around about the whereabouts of “Echo”, whether he was in the building. “Echo” was a nickname for Habib, one of the men who would be shot within minutes. Echo had hit Liscombe over the head with a bat a few days before the shootings, according to Susan Panich’s testimony.

Next, Vandenaneele testified, he saw Ian Liscombe walk to Room 15 on the first floor and push on the door. “Ian was first,” he said “and Rocka was probably two to three steps behind Ian.” The door opened a little but then slammed shut again. “At that time, Ian attempted again, and that’s when Rocka came in behind him.” Then, as though somebody on the other side had suddenly released it, “the door flung open with Ian going in first.” Ian’s foot “went to kick at something” and missed. As Vandenaneele watched, “the barrel of a gun came up.” Vandenaneele was 6-8 feet back from the door at the time. “I didn’t see hands” on the gun, he said, but he estimated he saw about 18” of the barrel – although the previous day, he estimated that he had seen about 2 feet of the barrel of the gun. “As it came up, the gun went off….I heard the blast of a gun and Ian fell into the floor of Room 15….He fell forward”.

“Rocka pulled out a baton”. He pulled it out of a pouch, “like a Gucci bag”,that Vandenaneele had seen him regularly wear on his chest. “It’s a telescopic baton,” Vandenaneele specified, “and they extend.” He described the baton as black, made of three sections, each about 8” long. When asked what the baton was made of, he replied, “Steel”. Vandenaneele said he had seen this baton previously in Knibbs’ possession, “in his room, on the table.” But this was the first time he’d seen him carrying the baton in his pouch. He had previously known Knibbs to use his pouch to carry “his dope”, along with his money and a 38 handgun.

“As Ian was falling to the floor, the baton was being extended”, Vandenaneele clarified. Knibbs “forward motioned it; it extended.” Then Vandenaneele heard what sounded to him like someone being struck by the baton. “Someone screamed.”. Vandenaneele was within a foot of the door when he heard this.

“I moved down the hall to Room 11”, he added. Why?, the prosecutor asked. “Ian’s girlfriend was there and she was calling me.” What was her name?, the prosecutor asked. Vandenaneele responded, “Susan”.

Susan.

I perked up. The usually drowsy voice of the prosecutor perked up.

What did Susan look like?, the prosecutor asked. “Tiny little blond girl,” Vandenaneele responded. He estimated her to be about “5 foot tall” and about 35 or 36 years old.

This was Susan Panich, who had persistently testified on Thursday that she had not heard anything or seen anyone while in her room or in the corridor of the New Wings on the night her boyfriend, Ian Liscombe, and another man were shot in Room 15.

“I was bringing my laundry in from [the laundromat at] Jackson and Hastings….I was back and forth,” Panich had testified. “I think I was outside when I heard what might have been a shot; I don’t know….I came in, put my laundry away.”

Panich was asked by the prosecutor if she had seen anything as she came in through the front door to her room on the first floor, which she confirmed was Room 11. “I didn’t see anything. I put my laundry inside and I took off.”

When asked who, if anybody, she had seen, Panich responded, “I didn’t see nobody in the halls….I was in there not even three, five, minutes.

When asked if the door to Room 15 was open or closed, Panich testified. “Closed”.

Did you hear anything unusual? “No”. Did other people come out? “No.”

Vandenaneele, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was exposing Susan Panach as a liar, continued his testimony. “Susan was yelling for me to come down the hall so I went down to Room 11.” The door of Room 15 where the gun had gone off was closed as Vandenaneele moved up the hall. “As I walked to Room 11, I heard “glass smash, a table break, a guy screaming, and moans.” At room 11, he recalled, “I stood between the door frame and the hallway; I could see to the other end of the hall.”

“After the commotion of the table smashing, I heard more wrestling,” Vandenaneele continued, “Then pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Six pops.” He recalled that the sound “wasn’t a very high pitched pop.” But the pops were “rapid, continuous” with “not much time between each”.

Vandenaneele was “trying to listen to Susan and the commotion” at the same time. Then he recalled, “Things went silent for a minute or two.”

The door to Room 15 had by this time opened. When the popping stopped, Vandenaneele recalled, “John Jr.” [Whalen] standing in front of the door of Room 15 screaming, “They’re dead; they’re dead; they’ve been shot!”

Vandenaneele had now moved back down the hall toward room 15. He saw Knibbs come out of the Room 15 holding “a revolver in his left hand”, a black 38. Knibbs “came out in a crouched position with the tumbler down, trying to reload more bullets in the tumbler.”

This was not the first time Vandenaneele had seen this revolver in Knibb’s presence. He’d seen it “sitting on a table top in his room.”

Knibbs managed to load more bullets into the gun, Vandenaneele noted: “He did get them in there and the tumbler pulled back.

“Did someone intervene?”, the prosecutor asked.

Yes, a girl from the second floor.” Vandenaneele knew her by her nickname “Tee” and recalled her having identified herself as “Rocka’s girlfriend” the first time he met her.

As the gun was being reloaded, she yelled at Knibbs, “That’s enough, that’s enough! Stop! Stop!” Knibbs passed her the gun. She moved in the direction of the office.

As Tee left, Vandenaneele recalled only Knibbs and “John Jr.” Whalen remaining.

“Rocka was screaming for a cell phone. ‘Give me a cell phone! Give me a cell phone! I need to phone the ambulance!” Vandenaneele described Knibbs’ voice as “hysterical”. Knibbs moved toward the office looking for a phone.

“At that time I made my move to leave,” Vandenaneele recalled. But first he took a look inside Room15 and saw “two guys on the floor in a pool of blood.”

“John Jr. headed down the stairs. Rocka too. All three of us left the building.”

Why did you leave?, the prosecutor asked Vandenaneele. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it happened.”

Vandenaneele ran down the stairs five or six steps after John Jr. Whalen and Knibbs. They exited onto Dunlevy St. and headed up to Hastings St. On foot, they traveled through an alley between Hastings and Cordova. Then they “jumped into a cab at the Patricia Hotel” on Hastings.

It was not only Michael Vandenaneele’s contradiction of Susan Panich’s testimony that left her looking like a liar, it was also discrepancies between her testimony and the statement she had given to police two years earlier on the night of April 4, 2005, following the shootings. The prosecutor alluded to these discrepancies in court when he repeatedly responded to her testimony by handing her sections of her statement to police to read to “refresh” her memory.

The prosecutor handed her a section of her statement to police following her court testimony that she had seen nobody and heard nothing when she was in her room or in the corridor of the New Wings Hotel the night of the shootings: “Again, with regard to what you heard, I’d like you to read from your statement to police.” Panich gave the statement a perfunctory glance and retorted, “I can see I was totally out of it. It’s not true. I’m sober now.”

The prosecutor had a few minutes earlier attempted to refresh Panich’s memory with a section of her police statement, after questioning her about “any conversation that you may have heard between Rocka and Ian about ‘roughing someone up’”. “Did you hear that?”, he had asked her. “No”, had been her response. “You spoke to police on April 14, 2005,” he reminded her as he handed her a “portion of your statement to police” on that date. “Does it help you recall any conversation?” She would concede only that, “I know Ian was a little pissed off.” The prosecutor continued to politely, softly, press her on the issue of this conversation: “Did you hear any conversation about what could be done?” “I never heard anything”, she responded.

Who knows if Susan Panich will be called to account for what appears to be perjury. Judge Silverman showed her on Wednesday that he was not going to allow her to show disrespect for the court. He refused her request to be released from jail after she had to be arrested Wednesday morning at her hotel room near Main & Hastings for failing to appear to testify. He told her that he believed she would “be feeling better tonight” after using drugs, and that she was likely to fail to show up to testify on Thursday morning. He impressed upon her, “This is a murder trial.”

Vancouver Police: from forensic fumbling to racial profiling

A cliffhanger. That’s how the murder trial of Dennis Knibbs ended it’s third day on Thursday.

Michael Vandenaneele, a former cocaine addict turned journeyman welder, testified that he dropped by the New Wings Hotel to buy cocaine the night of April 4, 2005. He was chatting with the desk clerk, when he saw Dennis “Rocka” Knibbs and his cousin Ian Liscombe come down the stairs with a “guy in arms”. The guy was “a very close friend of Ekoh’s” – Ekoh being a nickname for Nabib, one of the men Knibbs is accused of shooting that night. Liscombe and Knibbs were yelling at the man they were holding, demanding to know Ekoh’s whereabouts, whether he was in the building. When they got to the first landing, they told the guy to get out of the building.

Liscombe and Knibbs then stood around on the landing. “We were congregating, talking,” Vandenaneele recalled. A few minutes later, a native guy living in Room 15, Charlie being his surname, came out of his room. “That drew Ian’s attention”, Vandenaeele said. “Ian asked him if he had seen Ekoh or if Ekoh was in his room.”

Liscombe was headed back upstairs with Knibbs trailing when, Vandenaneele says, he doesn’t know “what possessed” Liscombe to first walk over to Room 15 and open the door. The door opened about 18 inches, and then slammed back in Liscombe’s face. “Rocka was right behind Ian trying to push the door. Rocka was pushing higher on the door ‘cause he’s a little taller than Ian.” Then Vandenaneele spotted the shot gun: “I could see about 2 feet of a barrel….when the door flew open, you could see the barrel of the gun.” The witness who went over the sequence of events a couple of times said, “That’s when one gun went off, I seen Ian fall to the floor.”

It was here that spectators were left hanging. Who was on the other side of the door when the gun went off. Who was holding the shot gun? Was it Ekoh? Ekoh of course ended up dead.

Vandenaneele’s story is corroborated by testimony given this morning by Laura Lee Wayne, an admitted prostitute and daily user of “rock” cocaine and sometimes heroin. Wayne, a thin 25 year old with bangs and neck length brown hair with an obvious auburn rinse, lived at the New Wings at the time the shootings occurred. She had been upstairs “getting ready” to go out to work as a prostitute, when she heard a loud noise downstairs, followed by several more loud noises. When she went down, she saw Knibbs standing near Room 15. “I heard him say, ‘He shot my cousin first.’” His voice sounded “scared” to her. She also saw a shot gun sticking out of a bag on the floor, which she said she picked up and took downstairs to police, although the transcript of her earlier police interview has her saying she “got caught with the shot gun.”

Statements made in a police interview by another witness, Susan Panich, an admitted cocaine addict, also dove tails with Vandenaneele’s testimony. Panich, a skinny 45 year old with brownish blond shoulder length hair, was living with her boyfriend Ian Liscombe at the New Wings when he was killed. She and Liscombe sold drugs. In her view, Liscombe and his cousin Knibbs got along “very well”. But she acknowledged that there was some animosity between Liscombe and Echo, the latter whom the prosecutor described as having a “dark complexion and a goatee”. In her view, Echo “was jealous of Ian.” who was more successful at selling drugs. “He tried to cut Ian’s grass”, she said, explaining that she meant “take his customers away.” She testified that Echo hit Liscombe over the head with a bat, requiring 1 ½ -2 inches of stitches. “Echo was barred out of the hotel the day he hit Ian on the back of the head.”

The prosecutor asked Panich to recall “any conversation you may have heard between Rocka and Ian about ‘roughing someone up’”. But he could get no acknowledgement from her that any such conversation had occurred. The prosecutor pointed to a section of the transcript of her interview with police, asking her to read it, “Does it help you recall any conversation?’ She would concede only that Liscombe was “a little pissed off.”

In addition to reluctant witnesses in withdrawal, today saw the return of the VPD’s mistake prone forensics expert, Constable Mark Christensen. Yesterday, Christensen had admitted that his report had falsely identified a large bullet hole as being on the left side of a victim’s chest and a small one being on the right side when in fact it was “the opposite.”

Today Christensen came to court armed with a voluntary admission that he had incorrectly reported the condition of the shot gun when it was delivered to him from the New Wings crime scene. When he opened the bag and removed the shot gun, the slide containing a fingerprint of Knibbs’ was not in a forward position as he had reported yesterday, but back. And the chamber was not closed as he had reported, but open.

Christensen also acknowledged that in his 2005 report, he had mistakenly identified a fingerprint on the shot gun as being from the left “ring” finger when in fact it was from the left “middle” finger. “I wrote the wrong thing down in my report,” Christensen said. “You made a mistake”, defense lawyer Glen Orris asserted, driving the point home as the jury listened. “So you’ve worked your way back from patrol since then?”, Orris kidded him. “I’m not infallible”, Christensen politely retorted, adding that he’d like that fact noted on the record, and shown to his wife. Laughter.

Christensen excused his false identification of the fingerprint as being from a left “ring” finger instead of a left “middle” finger as a “typographical error”. He was prone to that excuse. He had used it yesterday when it was pointed out that he had identified Constable McLaughlin, the officer who had taken the crime scene photos, by an incorrect badge number in his report. [McLaughlin had taken the crime scene photos, Christensen explained, with a camera with a malfunctioning flash. Many “didn’t turn out” and had to be taken again at a later date.]

There was one mistake made by the VPD in this case, though, that could prove more embarrassing than any made by Constable Christensen, a mistake inadvertently revealed by Orris: racial profiling. As Orris and the judge reviewed sections of the transcripts of an interview police conducted shortly after the murders with Laura Wayne, a 23 yr. old resident of the New Wings, Orris mentioned that the VPD questioner had “asked her about her relationship to black guys”, specifically if it was a “pimping” relationship. Wayne, who looks Caucasian but has been identified by police as "native", told police that this was not the case, that she was “an independent”.

Laura Wayne did not appear to be under Knibb's control, although she was living with him in Room 50 until "they shut the Wings down" after the shootings. "We were sort of seeing each other but not really", she testified. She had actually developed a "boyfriend-girlfriend" relationship with another New Wings resident, John Whalen, whom she called John Jr.

Laura Wayne did not make herself easy for a man to control, as the beleaguered prosecutor found out: she barked at him in response to questions, once saying "Fuck!"under her breathe, and twice firmly chastised him, "I think you've established that!" Her rebellious nature also permeated the police interrogation of her immediately following the shootings. When prodded about her drug use, she told police, "I'm a professional; I should get a badge for it". She went on to say, “It’s like taking a shit and wiping your ass. I do it everyday

Overall, testimony today opened wider the window onto one of the worst addresses on the Downtown Eastside. Tenants behind “every second door” of the New World Hotel had drugs for sale, according to Panich. “Ian, John, Rocka, Susan, Teeth, and Donnie”, were selling drugs out of there, according to Van Vandenameele. Two machetes were found slid between the mattress and the box spring in Room 15, according to Christensen, and a bullet was found on the floor as well as a couple of shell casings. Lots of small clear plastic baggies were found in the room too, the type Christensen knew to be used to package drugs for sale. And drugs were found in the pocket of a beige coat. Police style batons were not an uncommon sight, according to Panache: “A lot of the guys have them”. Knibbs’ had such a baton in his hand as he stood in the hall after the shootings, according to Wayne. Liscombe had a handgun in his room according to Pinach, a handgun which Wayne told police he carried in his pocket “like a fuckin’ wallet”.

A reminder that the New Wings world was not confined to a few bad blocks on the Downtown Eastside came during questioning of Constable Christensen. Orris asked about a search warrant listing blood stained clothing, a police style baton, and a 38 caliber revolver, served to a “young woman who was obviously frightened” at 1421 East 2nd Ave. A nicer neighbourhood.

Did the Olympics kill the San Francisco Pawn Shop?

The San Francisco Pawn Shop is dead. After 50 years, its doors on Hastings St. across from Save On Foods will shut at the end of August.

Jeff, the owner, confirmed the closure to a Downtown Eastside pensioner who dropped in this morning to see about a watch. The pensioner knows Jeff, whom he says took the place over from his dad. "You still see his dad, Mitch, working in there, part-time."

"They sold the property to people from Hong Kong", the pensioner explains. "Concord Pacific, people from Hong Kong." That's a huge lot; it goes right back to the alley, the pensioner explains.

People on the Downtown Eastside will miss the San Francisco Pawn Shop, the pensioner believes. "People would go in there with all kinds of stuff", he recalls chuckling, "TVs, radios, clocks, watches, diamond rings."

But the San Francisco Pawn Shop owners may have gotten out of the business at the right time. The population of low-income residents who rely on a pawn shop to get through the month, is shrinking on the Downtown Eastside. The upcoming 2010 Olympics has jacked up property values and roughly 12 buildings that have provided cheap rooms to poor people have or are being sold for re-development.

The pensioner believes that with the sale of the San Francisco Pawn Shop property, things are going according to plan for the right-of-center City Council. "They want the area cleaned up by 2010, for the Olympics. They don't want people coming here and seeing all those poor people."

As the Olympics come, the San Francisco Pawn Shop goes. The paper work for the pawn shop property has been completed, the pensioner says. "It's a done deal."

Carnegie staff lock doors and gossip

Downtown Eastsiders have long viewed the closing of the doors of Carnegie Community Centre for a staff meeting from 9 'til noon every welfare day -- the third Wednesday of each month -- to be an excuse for staff to have a schmoozefest. There may be some truth to that.

One staff person reported that at the last meeting, staff kept digressing into gossip instead of focusing on business. Gossip about what? "That blog," the staff person explained, referring to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer.

So now that we know what was going on inside Carnegie's locked doors, what was going on outside? The usual. A throng of people -- those who don't drink or drug on welfare day and may even be broke as cheques sent via mail don't arrrive until late morning -- was hanging around on the front steps waiting for the Centre to open. Just because it's welfare day, doesn't mean people aren't interested in checking their e-mail on a public computer or using the library.

Vancouver Sun reporting sloppy on Downtown Eastside

Bob Sarti, now retired from a long career as a Vancouver Sun reporter, recently revealed in a letter published in the Carnegie newsletter that he did not always let the facts interfere with a good story:

“When I was a young reporter, I was told to always get both sides of the story. That’s what was called balance. Like many other reporters, I ignored the rule from time to time; never let the facts stand in the way of a good story. Now retired, I can’t say I’m necessarily proud of it. But that’s the way it was/is in the mainstream media.”

Certainly in stories on the Downtown Eastside, a lack of due diligence on the part of Vancouver Sun reporters is noticeable. Take, for instance, Thursday’s cover story in the Westcoast Life section, "Beauty and the Streets".

In the story, reporter Michelle Hopkins took the predictable angle of portraying women on the Downtown Eastside as sex trade workers, drug-addicted, hopeless, hapless, and homeless. That sells papers. Hopkins pointed out that Beauty Night at the Health Contact Centre was organized by Caroline MacGillivray, who got the idea while in the Downtown Eastside researching a movie role by interviewing sex trade workers. Volunteering at WISH Drop In Centre where hookers hang out “exposed me to the women”, MacGillivray explained. “One night I did the hair for one of the street workers. She had tears in her eyes as she thanked me and gave me the biggest hug.” The whole article consisted of variations on this theme.

Volunteer Santina Sorrenenti, is quoted as saying that Beauty night shows these women that there are people out there who “don’t judge them”. Jennifer, a former sex trade worker and cocaine addict, is quoted as claiming that the volunteers at Beauty Night “gave me my self-esteem back." More of the same theme.

This story would be convincing to a reader who did not happen to recognize anybody depicted. But I took a double take at a colour photo accompanying the story -- in the paper edition, not the web -- of a woman relaxing, getting her toenails painted red. The caption read, “Leah, a nursing student, with a client.” I recognized the client: "Hey, that’s Tony!" She's a youngish, forty-eight year old woman with long brown hair which she dyes a shade lighter than her natural colour, and round brown-rimmed glasses. Her real name is Antonia.

Tony doesn’t live on the Downtown Eastside but she knows a bargain when she sees one. She lives in Mount Pleasant, in a housing complex at 33rd and Main, and occasionally drops into the Carnegie Centre which is just next door to the Health Contact Centre. It’s hard to imagine anyone with a bottle of nail polish giving Tony back her self-esteem. She seems to have enough self-esteem to get by; she’s confident, friendly, and has lots of friends. She raised two children. And she’s certainly not sticking a needle in her arm. Or selling her body. And neither are her grown children.

Tony didn’t mislead the Sun. It’s just that when the volunteer was doing a toenail job on her, the Sun was doing a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ journalism job on the public.

Vancouver Sun slack reporting about the Downtown Eastside was in evidence as well on the front page of the Friday, Dec. 8, 2006 edition. The headline screamed, “Our Four Blocks of Hell” with a bold subheading, "TV sets dropped from windows." The article covered a report just released by City Engineering about garbage and disorder in the area.

“Clothing thrown out of the area’s many single-room occupancy buildings became
tangled on overhead lines and heavier items like television sets were dropped to
the streets, endangering passersby.”

A woman who has lived for 15 years on the border of the four block area covered in the report remarked that she had never known a tv set to be thrown out of a window. Another woman who has lived in the DTES for over 30 years and eats almost daily at the Women’s Centre near Hastings & Columbia, has heard of a tv set being thrown out of a window -- just once. She emphasized that when something like that happens, it is definitely treated as unusual. “People talk about it.”

A binner who has also lived for over three decades on the Downtown Eastside, including in the area of the “Four Blocks of Hell”, says he has never known a television set to be thrown out of a window. “People smash tv sets in the alley,” he explained. “I’ve done it myself; they do it to get the electronics out, and the little bit of copper in the picture tube.” Copper can be sold. Computer monitors are also seen lying smashed in alleys and occasionally even on sidewalks, with the copper removed. Smashed tv sets may look to a person from outside the neighbourhood like they’ve been dropped from a window but the binner believes that scenario is unlikely. What is more likely, he believes, is that Janet Steffenhagen doesn’t know her beat.

Even the claim that clothing "thrown out of the area's many. . . buildings" is exaggerated somewhat. Anyone looking overhead as they walk through the four block area can see that for themselves. “You sometimes see clothes or shoes on the telephone lines, especially outside the buildings that house the mentally challenged,” the binner explained. “But it’s not like it’s every second building.”

Vancouver Sun journalists do not always stop at slackness or sloppiness though; they have been known to resort to outright fabrication. Look at the description of the clientele of the Carnegie Centre by Miro Cernetig in the October 30, 2006 edition of the Sun: “On any day or night, you can find them here getting help from social workers, free medical advice or sometimes just some much needed companionship.” Reality check: there are no social workers at Carnegie. The Director has credentials as a social worker but she was hired as an administrator and is burrowed in her top floor office. Reality check: Carnegie is not a place where people can go for medical advice. During a severe flu season, a couple of nurses may do a brief stint in the lobby, sitting at a table with a sign announcing that they're giving flu shots. But they are not there to dispense general medical advice.

In the next paragraph of his story, Cernetig makes a claim that brings to mind the expression, "Who should I believe, you or my lyin' eyes?" Cernetig writes: "The Carnegie’s tiny library is nearly always packed with the Downtown Eastside’s residents, some reading newspapers, some studying for courses to improve their lot in life….” In the 20 years, I have used the Carnegie library, I have never seen anyone studying for courses. I’m not saying that has never occurred. But the Carnegie Library is more of a reading room than a library, a place where people drop in to sign-out and read one of the daily newspapers.

The Vancouver Sun does not limit their sloppy coverage to stories about the Downtown Eastside. The Sun’s Editor-in-Chief, Patricia Graham, pointed out in a leaked internal memo last year that her mistake-prone staff couldn’t even tell the difference between a Palestinian and a Jewish settler when creating a photo caption. Graham noted in the memo that when people see mistakes, it undermines their confidence in the entire newspaper.

Povertarian: a new word on the Downtown Eastside

Ethel Whitty, Povertarian


For decades, "poverty pimps" has been a term used by Downtown Eastsiders to describe the flock of poverty industry workers who descend on the Downtown Eastside everyday. But “povertarians” works better. Dag at Covenant Zone began using it recently and it’s catching on.

Dag’s description of a povertarian brings to mind Ethel Whitty, Director of the Carnegie Centre. According to Dag, the povertarian frequently has the word “community” on their lips. When Whitty got hired as the $104,000 a year Director of the Carnegie Centre, here’s what she told the Courier newspaper:

"I wanted to be director of the Carnegie because I had a real urge to be closer to community, and to be in the middle of community, and this is a real opportunity to do that."

But what Whitty seemed to prefer when she arrived at Carnegie was a gated community. She rarely ventures outside her third floor executive office to mix with the underclass. She does make an appearance in the cafeteria on veggie burger Tuesdays, sitting at a table surrounded by Carnegie members more carefully vetted than the front row at a Republican convention.

Ethel Whitty. Povertarian.