VIOLENCE AGAINST CITY POLICE NOT SURPRISING

Can Anything Be More Obvious?

On the very eve of the provincial court sentencing hearing for six
Vancouver cops who beat up three alleged drug dealers in Stanley Park,
the police trot out a report about how much violence police face in
their day-to-day work lives.

And nowhere, according to the report, is a cop more likely to be
assaulted than downtown on Granville Street, the very location the
three beating victims were scooped up.

The report was presented by retired inspector Dave Jones, considered a
cop of impeccable credentials.

He's now working for the Downtown Business Improvement Association as
its lead guy in an orchestrated lobby screaming about the rise in
crime in the city (despite statistics to the contrary) and demanding
more cops downtown.

Not surprisingly, Jones' report on violence against police cites a
lack of police resources as a contributing factor.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not at all surprised that cops
face violent situations on a daily basis. Life for a cop is about more
than sucking back oodles of overtime directing traffic at film shoots.
They put themselves in harm's way as part of the job. We recognize
that, which is why we give them guns, billy clubs, mace and training
in how to deal with violent situations. We also accept that they can
use reasonable force in bringing situations under control.

What we do not accept is what happened in Stanley Park, which was a
deliberate and premeditated series of beatings. That was followed by
an attempt to cover up those beatings by filing a misleading report
about the incident and, according to the Crown, attempting to lean on
the cop who eventually blew the whistle. That's why the cops got charged.

But back to the issue of violence in the workplace: if you want a job
where you're likely to encounter violence, try being a health care
worker. No guns, no clubs, no mace. Just a growing number of violent
incidents.

The B.C. Nurses' Union put out a summary of WCB statistics on
violence-related claims for injuries on the job. About 40 per cent of
the claims come from health care workers, who make up less that five
per cent of the work force.

Neither the nurses' union nor the Hospital Employees Union can
remember one case of an assault charge resulting from an unprovoked
attack by a health care worker on a patient. The HEU says incidents
where questions are raised about one of its 20,000 members in patient
care using force to restrain a patient are rare, maybe one or two a
year. But according to Vancouver police spokeswoman Anne Drennan, it
should come as no surprise that there are several cops on the payroll
who have been convicted of criminal assault. (That number is now 10.)

Don't be surprised if Jones' report is used by the Stanley Park cops'
lawyers this week to try and temper the sentence the judge hands their
clients. But the judge shouldn't simply accept it as a matter of fact.

The survey was compiled by an undergraduate criminology student from
Simon Fraser University. The data was based on a questionnaire
prepared by the police. And it's more about how police feel than
anything else. The report claims 80 per cent of the police who
responded "believe there has been an increase in aggression and
violence." That's an opinion, not a fact.

As well as a shortage of resources, police blame the perceived
increase in violence on the media. They claim close scrutiny of the
cops by the media has led to a lowering of public respect for police.

I'd say if cops didn't beat people up, then lie about it, the media
would have a lot less to scrutinize and the public would be more
respectful.