I received my Google Alert today and found myself being relegated to the shallow end of the gene pool.It seems my many arrests were due to my stupidity.I was not flattered.Enough said.The Vancouver police have delivered an apology to 52 residents of the DTES(down town east side),who's privacy rights were violated by cops in their zeal to make an arrest.This is said to be a new beginning in the relationship between cops and addicts in the nations poorest postal code.Dean Wilson,former president of VANDU(vancouver area network of drug users),had lodged a complaint after reporting a possible suicide attempt and having his room ransacked.Wilson asked for an apology and actually got one.The complaints were handled by pivot legal society,a group dedicated to helping the disadvantaged.Wilson claimed to have been punched and generally abused.This used to be SOP for the drug squad in Vancouver.If they got you dirty,they laughed in your face.If they didn't find anything,they sh*t kicked you.Sometimes they put a limb over a curb and jumped on it till it snapped.There was no-one to complain to because you weren't considered human.Mr.Wilson is asking the cops to be a little more discrete with their choice of trafficking arrests.Addicts that are just supporting a habit should be given a break.Sure would have saved me twelve miserable years of public housing.Key excluded,of course.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Add new comment