VPD Helps Out In The US Drug War

I was walking out of Carnegie Centre the other day and bumped smack

into this little documentary project being shot on the corner. Being

on the Board of Directors at Carnegie (a City run activity centre

basically mandated to provide a safe, drug-and alcohol-free, homey

hangout to the poor in the area) I know that we have a policy against

whipping out cameras and sticking them in local people's faces, and

since I had not been asked to approve any such activity, I was kind of

curious to learn what this project was. I first asked cop #1 (the one

who looks like he's expecting a mob to rush the camera any second) but

he ignored me, and the other cop was too busy frontin' for the camera,

so I finally turned to the Carnegie security person who was watching

the corner at that moment. He said he hadn't heard anything about the

project, but that both the participating cops were "regulars" and

"real fucking pricks".



So I followed the little crew into the alley behind Carnegie, where I

finally got one of the film guys to acknowledge me and inform me "We

are an independent company from Chicago". The whole time, he was

very carefully holding his credentials & clipboard out of my line of

sight. I let him know that I was able to represent the organization

that runs the building they were shooting, and suggested that he talk

to some local people other than these two cops, at which point he

turned away from me without another word.



The bald cop kept up his monologue on all the gruesome stuff that goes

on in the neighbourhood, "murders, fights over drugs, prostitution,

sexual assaults (that's rape to you guys down in the states), people

being held prisoner in these hotel rooms ..." Meanwhile, knots of

people who had been using the alley hurriedly picked up their stuff

and ran, the camera tracking them.



I wasn't the only person following the shoot out of curiosity: there

was another guy I recognized tagging along, a Native guy. I chatted

with him for a bit, and then he talked to the clipboard guy, saying

he'd be happy to talk on camera, he's a local and an addict ...

clipboard guy said yeah sure, wrote down his name ("Mike") and said

we'll be in touch. Mike rolled his eyes at me and wandered off.



The bald cop then led the crew up to a pair of people in orange vests

who were wheeling a sharps container through the alley. "These," he

declared authoritatively to the camera, "are volunteers who go through

the alleys collecting used needles, which helps to slow the rate of

HIV infection." "Actually," said the woman with the camera in her

face, "we are City employees from the Carnegie Street Project. We do

on the spot health questionnaires, advocacy, help people get on

welfare and into housing, co-ordinate the street nurses, and dispense

condoms, syringes and clean water." "Oh. Sorry," said officer

Straight Trippin'.



Continuing his monologue, the bald cop then declared that here in BC,

marijuana is a "gateway" to harder drugs like crack cocaine or heroin,

and because it is so much stronger than what was available in the 60s,

it is a hard drug itself, with all the attendant dangers. "You ask any
of these people down here, and you ask them what their first drug was,"
he intoned, "and they'll say 'alcohol and marijuana.'" He's right about
one thing, I was thinking. Alcohol.



At this stage I decided I had seen enough. Both the cops and film

crew were studiously ignoring me and keeping their backs to my camera

(gettin' the word out any way you can, eh boys?) so I headed home with

visions of publishing on IndyMedia flashing in my head. Perhaps with

a link to this story: Vancouver police impersonate journalists to bust protest leader.