Vancouver City Council will vote on a motion on Tuesday to hire a 100 new cops to deal with the problems in the DTES says new mayor Ken Sim.
The biggest problem in the DTES is police brutality and abuse and hiring 100 cops will not solve the problem. The motion call for more funding and resources for programs such as Car 87/88, Assertive Community Treatment, and Assertive Community Outreach which will certainly improve the situation, however hiring 100 new cops without addressing the police brutality and abuse is not a solution and will cause more problems than solve. I said this on a panel with Sim who seemed to listen to what I was saying when I ran for mayor against in the recent election.
The VPD just released a report which police chief Adam Palmer saying that too much money in social services is being spent in the DTES without proper coordination and oversight, calling for centralised body to coordinate services in the DTES.
Solving problems in the DTES needs more money being spent in social services to tackle homelessness and the toxic drug crisis that hiring 100 cops. Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth says that the VPD report is ” spreading sensationalised and misleading numbers”. The Police Union endorsed Sim for Mayor for the first time ever. With this report, the VPD is facing criticism that it is attempting to influence the political agenda.
The provincial government is working on a legislation for police reform to address many concerns about police abuse and accountability including systemic racism and bigotry. But when the Vancouver police chief Palmer has stated that there is to systemic racism in the VPD, then there is room for solving the problem or accountability.
There was attempt to do that in Surrey with a community call for city police force which is more responsible and accountable to the pubic. But the new Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke wants reverse that by retaining the RCMP which is fraught with history of colonial racism and bigotry with little accountability.
The Surrey RCMP have charged former Mayor Dough McCallum with mischief with little evidence for attempting to charge an RCMP supporter who his known to harass RCMP opponents with running over his foot for opposing the RCMP.
Imtiaz Popat 