'Like urban warfare': Community-led police oversight project launched in Vancouver
Two community groups in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside have announced a new police oversight project aimed at documenting troubling interactions with law enforcement in the impoverished neighbourhood.
The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society shared details of the initiative – dubbed Police Oversight with Evidence and Research, or POWER – at a news conference Thursday, accusing authorities of taking an increasingly aggressive approach in their dealings with local residents.
"It's like urban warfare out there," said Dave Hamm, one of the leads on the project. "Police are not being held accountable for the ways they behave in the community."
In general, misconduct complaints against the Vancouver Police Department are handled internally, unless otherwise directed by the provincial Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner.
VANDU supervisor Jon Braithwaite said the community has lost faith in the department to hold officers accountable, however, describing the process of having police investigate themselves as one that "feeds corruption."
Asked about the POWER project at an unrelated news conference Thursday, police spokesperson Const. Tania Visintin said she could not comment before reviewing the details of the plan.
She also declined to speak to general concerns around officers' conduct in the neighbourhood.
"If anybody has interaction with the police, they're not satisfied with that interaction, they feel any of their rights have been violated, we do have a complaints process in place," Visintin said.
The Vancouver Police Department has not responded to a follow-up request for comment on the oversight project from CTV News. This article will be updated if a response is received.
B.C. also has a civilian oversight body, the Independent Investigations Office, that's tasked with investigating all police-involved incidents that result in death or serious harm, but POWER noted that since the IIO was founded some 12 years ago, no officer who has contested a charge has ever been convicted.
Members of POWER pointed to a number of recent investigations that have left some Downtown Eastside residents frustrated, including the 2022 crash that left Dennis Hunter seriously injured.
Video showed Hunter had been standing motionless on Hastings Street for at least 10 seconds when a speeding police cruiser without its emergency lights activated slammed into him in the middle of the night, sending him flying through the air.
Following an IIO investigation, Const. Jack Zhao was ultimately fined $2,000 under the Motor Vehicle Act for speeding – a penalty critics at POWER described as a “slap on the wrist.”
Members also expressed concerns about the investigation into the death of Chris Amyotte, an Indigenous man who was killed by police in August 2022, which remains ongoing nearly two years later.
Witnesses said Amyotte had been bear sprayed and was frantically asking bystanders for help before police arrived and ultimately shot him with a beanbag shotgun.
"Whether they do it through physical violence or whether they do it by stories they tell about us, the police de-humanize our community every day and they normalize the deaths and the violence," Hamm said.
"I think we're all kind of numb sometimes from this ourselves, and we said we're not going to be numb anymore."
Leaders of POWER said community members will be invited to a weekly meeting to share accounts of their interactions with police, which will be compiled and publicized.
Details of how that data will be published are still being worked out, according to the group.
With files from CTV News Vancouver's Ben Nesbit
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Vehicle supply building. Prices are going down. Is it time to buy a new car?
For the first time in years, car shoppers are having an easier time finding a deal as the auto industry bounces back from supply chain woes — and experts say the outlook could get even better.
Crew of NASA's earthbound simulated Mars habitat emerge after a year
The crew of a NASA mission to Mars emerged from their craft after a yearlong voyage that never left Earth.
Japan’s tourism tax sparks industry speculation in Canada
Japan has introduced a tourism tax for Mount Fuji, which has prompted some in Canada to wonder if our own tourist destinations like Niagara Falls and the Bay of Fundy could be potential options for our own tourism tax.
Woman dies at Rolling Stones concert in Vancouver
A woman attending the Rolling Stones concert at BC Place died Friday night, police confirmed.
Jon Landau, Oscar-winning 'Titanic' and 'Avatar' producer, dies at 63
Jon Landau, an Oscar-winning producer who worked closely with director James Cameron on three of the biggest blockbusters of all time, 'Titanic' and two 'Avatar' films, has died. He was 63.
This Italian vacation hotspot is turning tourists away as it runs out of water
Set atop a hill on the Italian island of Sicily, Agrigento is a heritage tourist’s paradise. But the aqueduct, and others built in modern times, are running so dry that small hotels and guesthouses in the city and nearby coast are being forced to turn tourists away.
Russian-linked cybercampaigns put a bull's-eye on France. Their focus? The Olympics and elections
Photos of blood-red hands on a Holocaust memorial. Caskets at the Eiffel Tower. A fake French military recruitment drive calling for soldiers in Ukraine, and major French news sites improbably registered in an obscure Pacific territory, population 15,000.
Iran detains outspoken lawyer who criticized 2022 crackdown following Mahsa Amini's death
An outspoken Iranian lawyer who has publicly criticized how the government handled the 2022 protests has been arrested, state media reported Sunday.
Torrid heat bakes millions of people in large swaths of U.S., setting records and fanning wildfires
Roughly 130 million people were under threat over the weekend and into next week from a long-running heat wave that broke or tied records with dangerously high temperatures and is expected to shatter more from East Coast to West Coast, forecasters said.