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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!

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.