WITNESSING THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE

A police car drives up to a street corner in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside
and everyone scatters. In five minutes, a city block goes from bustling to
deserted. This already common scene has become an even more familiar sight
in the Downtown Eastside during the past few weeks as police officers
reassigned from community policing to a crackdown on the drug trade have
flooded the neighbourhood.

"The first day was just mental. It was cops on horses, cops on motorbikes,
cops in cars, cops on foot everywhere. You couldn't spit without hitting a
cop," said Jill Chettier, a 24-year-old resident of the Downtown Eastside.
"They were ticketing people for jaywalking or not wearing a helmet - silly
things. That's a strategy too because you ticket people for those things
and eventually what happens is they end up with a warrant because they're
poor and they can't pay the goddamn ticket."

Since the latest police crackdown began on April 7, Chettier, who works for
the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and studies arts and culture at
Simon Fraser University, has been participating in "witness shifts"
organised by community activists to "police the police." Every night,
Chettier and other observers walk the streets, tail police officers, and
document their activities. We joined her for a shift late one night last month.

"What has been happening with this heavy duty enforcement is that people
are pushed into conditions that aren't healthy for them," Chettier said.
"They're pushed further into back alleys, further into their hotel rooms,
further into unsafe situations - and in those situations they're more
likely to become sick."

As we walked towards the intersection of Main and Hastings streets,
Chettier pointed out a man who was recently arrested because his probation
conditions prohibit him from being in the Downtown Eastside. Chettier
called his circumstances common as well as unconstitutional.

"It's an excuse to eventually arrest and incarcerate people, because people
end up out here," she said as we passed by an unmarked police car idling in
an alley. "They've got nowhere else to go, they don't live anywhere,
they're drug addicted, they're poor. All they know is how to hustle on
these blocks. When they get out of jail, just around the corner, where are
they going to go? They end up down here, where they're not supposed to be.
Then they're in breach, which is probably a bigger offence than what they
went into jail for in the first place."

Chettier always begins her witness shifts by walking towards Main and
Hastings from the drop-in centre at 327 Carrall Street, where she
volunteers to get a sense of the police presence in the neighbourhood that
night. A stroll down several nearby alleys and streets typically follows.

"If I find police, I stay back about 20 feet or so and follow them and
watch them and just observe as they jack people up and what have you,"
Chettier said as we shadowed three police officers patrolling an alley
reeking of urine behind the Carnegie Community Centre.

Observers encourage victims of police brutality and harassment to submit
affidavits to document their experiences. They also distribute cards
produced by the Pivot Legal Society to inform residents of the rights they
possess when dealing with the police.

"Somebody goes back here to get a toke, and they get their pipe broken and
they have to show their tattoos," Chettier said. "People are subjected to
strip searches indiscriminately. People are subjected to having to lie face
down in the pouring rain or in the Main and Hastings public washroom.

"People are being targeted because they're drug addicted and they're poor,"
she added.

As we stood outside 327 Carrall, a woman approached us and asked, "Anybody
got needles?" Chettier directed her inside the drop-in centre, which was
established as an unauthorised safe injection site last month. Supporters
awaiting the opening of a government-funded safe injection site conceived
of 327 Carrall - which is open every night from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. and is
staffed by a registered nurse - as an interim measure.

"Supposedly, around this time we were supposed to have a safe injection
site," Chettier said. "Where the fuck is the safe injection site? It's
being wrapped and buried in red tape in Ottawa and the Vancouver Coastal
Health Authority and city of Vancouver aren't doing fuck all about it."

Walking through the piss soaked alley behind the Carnegie Centre again, two
big rats cross our paths. With several police officers lingering on
Hastings, there were more people in the alley than before.

"This crackdown is displacing people," Chettier said. "It's not getting
them off the drugs. It's not doing anything about any problems they may
have had in their lives."

Near Hastings and Columbia, one resident told us he was sympathetic with
the actions of police officers in the neighbourhood.

"They do have a tendency to get out of hand," said Craig, 33 years old.
"But it all depends on your attitude. You come off hostile and being a jerk
and stuff, they're going to do their job. They're doing their job, same as
everyone else."

"There's a lot of them that over-enforce the law," added 31-year-old Rob, a
resident of the Downtown Eastside for the past 10 years.

As we strolled down Blood Alley, Chettier said she was highly critical of
the city for pushing the enforcement element of their Four Pillars approach
to the Downtown Eastside's drug problems, while progress on the plan's
treatment, prevention, and harm reduction components have lagged behind.

"The analogy that everyone's been talking around about it is three
toothpicks and one baton used to beat people who are poor and drug
addicted,'" Chettier said.

For now, Chettier and other observers will continue to walk the streets of
the Downtown Eastside nightly, watching out for the safety of neighbourhood
residents, who they say are "under siege" from police.