B.C.’s human rights commissioner has launched an inquiry into whether the Vancouver Police Department stopped the public and media from entering the Downtown Eastside during a major decampment of unhoused people last April.
A complaint to the province’s police oversight agency, made public at a VPD board meeting last month, revealed concerns that the department purposefully created an “exclusion zone” on April 5 and 6. On those days, the department and city employees cleared all shelters along several Downtown Eastside streets, in response to an order from Vancouver’s fire chief, who sited safety concerns about the sidewalk structures.
After reviewing the complaint, the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner said it appeared that VPD did indeed create an exclusion zone “for the purpose of excluding the public and the media from a specific section of the city for a defined period of time.”
In a letter to the police board, Police Complaint Commissioner Clayton Pecknold went on to say it was “unclear what lawful authority was relied upon in the creation and enforcement” of the zone. He recommended that the police board have an independent body investigate the complaint, rather than dealing with it internally.
During the board meeting on Nov. 23, Supt. Don Chapman told the police board the department never created such a zone or prevented journalists from entering the area. Chapman said if media were ever denied full access to a portion of the decampment it would have been “purely for safety reasons.” He noted the area was busy with garbage trucks and moving trucks.
The board voted to dismiss the complaint without investigating it or passing it on to an independent body.
Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender said Tuesday (Dec. 12) that her inquiry aims to discover the truth and, if VPD did create an exclusion zone, what authority it was acting on, given it didn’t have a court injunction.
“When police may potentially come into conflict with some of society’s most marginalized people during a police operation, allegations of media being excluded or restricted from reporting on those operations raise serious red flags and merit investigation. The B.C. public rely on the media to gather and publish information, including on any potential human rights violations. The press plays a key role in our democracy and the protection of human rights.”
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