WANNA GET PICKED UP?

Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. The war in Iraq is certainly important, but it's not the
only thing going on. Closer to home, there are some troubling decisions
being made at police headquarters.

On Saturday, March 21, six Vancouver city police officers were charged with
assault after the alleged beating of three suspected drug dealers were
taken on a 'Starlight Tour' to Stanley Park on January 14. A young member
of the force came forward to superiors in the wake of the incident, and
police Chief Jamie Graham swiftly suspended the six, telling reporters that
he was stunned by the allegations and promising an immediate criminal
investigation.

It was a savvy move coming on the heels of last fall's much-publicised
report by the PIVOT Legal Society, a group of lawyers and activists, that
featured the testimonies of more than fifty victims of police brutality and
unlawful detention. From 1997 to 2001, the city paid out more than $510,000
in claims resulting from alleged excessive force during arrest and false
arrest.

But while the department is clearly trying to give the appearance of
cracking down on brutality, news of a 'Community Wide Enforcement Team'
with 50 plus officers, mainly to patrol Hastings Street with the intention
of cleaning up the corridor, has already started a new round of questions.
The operation, planned from April 1 to June 30, will involve rotating teams
of police officers on a 24-hour patrol on the street in one of the busiest
open drug markets in North America.

The police are now reportedly pulling officers out of community policing
offices to bolster their ranks for the proposed sweep of Hastings and
surrounding areas. Districts Two--which encompasses much of East
Vancouver--and Four community offices will have no police on duty after
April 1. A community policing insider adds that District One will have just
a token presence.

At a recent community forum in Strathcona, the neighbourhood adjacent to
the Downtown Eastside, one resident told the Ubyssey that police informed
the crowd that no one would even be allowed to spit between 100 West and
100 East Hastings during the operation without being arrested. Employing an
'arrest and release' tactic, the police would take people into custody,
transport them from the area and then drop them off. The aim is simple: to
make it difficult for dealers and users to stay on the street.

Such tactics will force folk out of reach of both the newly built
safe-injection site and the two-year-old health contact centre on Hastings.

The Health Contact Centre--opened December 21, 2001--is one of four
healthcare sites in the Downtown Eastside, worth $21 million. It provides
front-line services and basic medical care to the area. If police tactics
to push drug users out of the Downtown Eastside are successful, these
facilities will be rendered useless.

Mayor Larry Campbell, who made headlines with his campaign promise to open
the first safe-injection site in the Downtown Eastside January 1, is the
chair and media contact person of the Vancouver Police Board, which
approves all funding decisions for the department and advises on policy.

Why would Campbell, after championing the cause of alternatives to
enforcement, now allow such a pointless and potentially violent operation
to take place? This is not the Vancouver that voters endorsed at the last
election.

Of course, it is important that crime and drug use in the Downtown Eastside
is addressed, but the draconian and narrow-minded solution put forward by
Vancouver's police department does nothing to affect the problem. It
maintains the status quo by pushing the problem elsewhere.