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In 2007, Benjamin “Monty” Robinson killed a man named Robert Dziekanski. Because he was an on-duty RCMP officer at the time, he was not charged with any crime.

In 2008, Monty went for a drive after having a few drinks. He smashed his Jeep into a motorcycle and killed a man named Orion Hutchinson. He fled the scene but returned a short time later; his fellow cops didn’t administer a breathalyzer test until 90 minutes after the crash. Monty’s driver’s license was suspended for all of 90 days, and he had the gall to challenge even that slap on the wrist. It has taken the authorities more than a year to press charges. Now, instead of facing a charge of drunk driving causing death — which carries a life sentence — Monty has been charged merely with obstruction of justice, for lying to his fellow cops after he fled the scene of his second crime.

Here we have a man who has killed innocent people twice through his own irresponsible actions — a man who ran away instead of taking responsibility for what he’d done. Has he been held to account for either death? No. He’s only facing the obstruction charge because he lied about what happened. If you or I did what Monty had done, we would be behind bars for the rest of our lives. But Monty has a badge and a uniform, so even if he’s convicted, he’ll be walking the streets again in a few years’ time.

One set of laws for you and me, another set of laws for the cops. That’s how it is.

This Sunday is the International Day Against Police Brutality. In the spirit of the day, the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre is organizing a black market in the DTES to protest against police harassment of neighborhood residents:

Significant street sweeps have been occurring in the DTES from increased and aggressive ticketing for things like jaywalking to “illegal” vending. As verified by the VPD itself, a year-end performance report shows that officers issued 467 tickets for violations of the Safe Streets Act in 2008, compared to 202 tickets in 2007. Police officers also handed out 133 tickets for violations of the Trespass Act, up from 95 in 2007. Tickets for city-bylaw infractions, including tickets for vending, panhandling, and loitering, shot up to 439 tickets in 2008 compared to 247 tickets in 2007.

Leading up to the 2010 Olympics, such measures are meant to ‘cleanse’ the neighbourhood and to intimidate DTES residents through the use of no-go orders for “chronic offenders” (i.e vendors/binners) and street checks by VPD Beat Enforcement Team officers.

In response to this, the Power to Women group is organizing an afternoon of “illegal vending” in front of the Vancouver Police Station on Sunday March 15th, International Day Against Police Brutality. We strongly encourage supporters and allies of the group and of DTES residents who are facing this increased onslaught to please come out and make your presence visible. We are standing together and we ask you to come out and support the Power to Women “black market” which will also help fund the groups ongoing activities! If you have any items (clothing, appliances, books, art, crafts etc) to donate to our “illegal vending” efforts, please bring them with you on Sunday!

BC is planning to change the police complaints process. In theory, this is good news: the complaints process in this province is widely criticized. It’s so bad that the Pivot Legal Society and the BC Civil Liberties Association have been boycotting the existing process because they know it doesn’t work.

Some of the proposed changes are major improvements that civil liberties advocates have been demanding for a long time:

External investigations will be mandatory when a person has died or been seriously injured while in police custody.

Under the bill, officers being investigated will have to provide statements within five days of a request or risk being charged. The legislation will also require complaint investigators to report any possible misconduct by officers who are not the focus of a particular investigation.

Unfortunately, though, there are also some very serious problems with the proposals. For example, groups like Pivot and BCCLA, which play a big role in keeping the cops accountable, would be sidelined:

David Eby, spokesman for the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said the changes target watchdog groups.

He said such organizations can no longer file a third-party complaint with the commission if a witness or someone directly affected by an incident has already filed one.

Mr. Eby said that means his association could no longer file complaints about in-custody deaths, for example, to ensure an investigation is done.

He said the commissioner’s office now discloses information to the group about an investigation and its outcome, but that will no longer happen under the proposed changes.

And then there’s this:

Mr. Eby also criticized the new mediation process that requires a complainant to participate in an information process with the police officer against whom the complaint was filed.

In other words, the cops will be given an opportunity to intimidate their victims into withdrawing their complaint. I was at a conference a couple of years ago where the Vancouver Police Department’s complaints commissioner talked about how he’d moved the complaints office out of VPD headquarters precisely to avoid this sort of problem.

So, we’ve got a few good changes, a few bad changes that will make things worse — and nothing at all to change the sick institutional culture of our police departments, where harassing the poor is a matter of official policy; where cops are taught to stand up for one another even when they do horrible things; where misdeeds are defended and covered up at the highest levels; where police brutality is treated as less serious than violence committed by ordinary citizens, rather than as more serious (since it’s an abuse of power).

Here’s some CCTV footage from a Seattle holding cell last November:

For once, the guilty cop is facing assault charges. Does that mean the system works? No, it means that this time, the bad cop got caught. When 15-year-old girls are grabbed by the hair, smashed against a wall, and punched in the head while being pinned to the ground — all for the grave offence of being rude to a cop — the system is most definitely not working.

I’ve just discovered why I got stopped by the cops for no reason while walking through the Downtown Eastside last month. Turns out it’s all part of the plan — specifically, the Vancouver Police Department’s 2009 Business Plan:

[There is] a “target” in that plan to increase bylaw ticketing in the Downtown Eastside by 20 per cent to “improve livability by reducing street disorder.”As part of their duties, each cop walking the beat will do a “minimum of four street checks” of pedestrians on every block.

… [T]he B.C. Civil Liberties Association and a number of organizations representing people with AIDS complain that this latest police crackdown will simply drive the most vulnerable people in the area further away from health care and cause them to engage in more risky behaviour, including shooting up with used needles.

… The draft plan landed on the police board agenda and was made available to the public on Jan. 21. But the police actually began their latest ticketing exercise two months earlier, conveniently timed to hit the streets while Sam Sullivan was heading out the door and [Gregor] Robertson and his crowd were making plans to move in.

Looks like I was right: to the cops, simply being in the DTES is suspicious behavior. They can’t seem to do anything about the current wave of gang-related violence, but when it comes to harassing poor people, you can rely on Vancouver cops to get the job done.

And don’t expect our new and improved City Council to do much about it. When Vancouverites think about police crackdowns on poor people, we tend to think of Project Civil City, an initiative of former mayor Sam Sullivan. For those who thought that things would change now that Gregor Robertson and Vision Vancouver are in charge at City Hall, please take a closer look at the article I linked to above. It’s clear that Robertson and Vision are all over the VPD’s odious new business plan.

You can download the VPD business plan here.