Downtown Eastside Residents Say They Were Taunted and Harassed by Two Police Officers
Complaint filed by 17 people shows the need for special training for those assigned to the neighbourhood, advocate says.
Jen St. Denis is The Tyee’s Downtown Eastside reporter. Find her on Twitter @JenStDen. SHARES ‘I don’t think the community is safe with these two officers,’ says Ronnie Grigg, who has worked in safe consumption sites in the neighbourhood.
Photo by Jackie Dives.
In September 2018, Mari-Louise Harpe went outside her building in the Downtown Eastside to have a cigarette. Two police officers told her she had to move, even though Harpe tried to explain she lived in the building.
One of the three stood up and stepped towards me, the tension in his shoulders easing. He said someone else had just come through the alley, filming everything on his phone without saying a word, and it pissed him off.
“So what’s this story you’re working on?” the guy asked. I explained a little more about the issue, and that I was looking for people who had accessed safer-supply prescription narcotics, or might want to.
The man, who declined to give me his name, said he hoped to get on the program soon, because the street drug supply he relied on was so dangerous. I asked if I could make a few photos of the three of them.