Indigenous youth don’t trust Vancouver Police to investigate Nazi salute user

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Indigenous protesters say they don’t trust the Vancouver Police to investigate a white man who repeatedly threw a Nazi salute at a peaceful blockade last week.

Two members of Braided Warriors, a group of Indigenous youth opposed to the Trans Mountain Expansion project, said they saw a man lean out of his truck window and pump the Sieg Heil three times while yelling at them on Wednesday, March 3.

The man was in an apparent fury because the group had blocked the intersection of Clark Drive and Hastings Street to protest the recent sentencing of an Indigenous pipeline opponent. News outlet Vancouver is Awesome captured video of the incident.

Spokesperson Sgt. Steve Addison said in an email the Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD) hate crimes unit was aware of the incident via media reports but wasn’t able to initiate an investigation because no one had filed an official complaint.

Addison later said he “misspoke” in his previous email and that an investigation was underway, “however to gain a more fulsome understanding about what happened we need people to come forward and speak with investigators.”

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‘We don’t work with the police, ever’

But the Braided Warriors members said they have no intention of working with a police department that has “brutalized” them recently and has a long history of violence against Indigenous people.

“We haven’t discussed that, because we don’t work with the police, ever,” said one of the demonstrators, who asked not to be named out of concern for her safety.

“The police have an extremely long track record, since their invention, of brutalizing, murdering, and assaulting Indigenous people and Indigenous youth, especially land defenders and land protectors,” she said.

Corvin Mack, another Braided Warriors member, said he also witnessed the Nazi salute but would “absolutely not” report it to the VPD.

“The police, in fact, are probably the Number 1 threat to us, quite frankly,” Mack said. “Any time there’s an altercation involving Indigenous people, the police are basically useless in any scenario. The police can’t keep us safe at all.”

Cops are more threat than help, Indigenous youth say

Mack said he was slammed to the ground, dragged by his wrist across a glass-strewn floor and later concussed when his head was slammed against a police van by Vancouver Police officers arresting him in February after the Braided Warriors occupied the lobby of a company that insures the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Social media footage from that day showed a cop pulling one protester by the hair and pushing another.

https://twitter.com/KanahusFreedom/status/1362986874336346115?s=20

At the time, a VPD spokesperson said the video “did not provide complete context” for what happened, but said the officers’ actions were being reviewed by the department’s professional standards section.

Addison did not directly respond when asked about concerns Indigenous people wouldn’t trust the police to investigate the Nazi-salute incident.

A 2019 survey found 30 per cent of Indigenous people in Canada had a “great deal of confidence” in the police, while 42 per cent of non-Indigenous people reported the same.

“The issue of poor relations between the police and Indigenous people and racialized people in Canada is well documented,” a Statistics Canada report of the survey says, citing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. “The relationship between Indigenous people and the police has been described as one of mistrust, a characterization that is rooted in colonization.”

Salute user ‘extremely remorseful,’ boss says

The Braided Warriors member who asked not to be named said the man who directed hate at her group should be subject to Indigenous systems of justice and law, and that it would be “great” if he lost his job but she didn’t expect that to happen.

She said the man should be identified publicly “so that people are aware of a risk in their community.”

“There [are] people that are loved ones to this person and deserve to know that this person is harassing Indigenous youth and children, mothers and elders, and throwing up Nazi symbols in public, on camera. So I can’t imagine what he would be doing behind closed doors when he’s not accountable to the public,” she said.

The man who threw the Nazi salute was identified to NEWS 1130 by multiple sources as Kyle Hanson, an employee of Torrent Shotcrete, which provides concrete construction services to multiple clients, including the Trans Mountain Expansion project.

Kyle Hanson of Torrent Shotcrete has been identified as the man who threw a Nazi salute at Indigenous youth in Vancouver.

Torrent president and CEO Michael Luers and a Trans Mountain spokesperson both said Hanson has not worked on the pipeline project.

Luers apologized on behalf of his company to those affected by Hanson’s “reprehensible behaviour.”

“We have spoken to Kyle directly and he is ashamed and extremely remorseful of his actions,” Luers said in an email. “He realizes that his frustrations over the traffic issues in no way justified the repellent gestures that he made toward peaceful protesters who were merely exercising their right to freedom of expression regarding important issues.”

Luers said Hanson is in counselling and has taken personal leave from work, which was a “mutually agreed upon course of action.”

Hanson regularly made racist and sexist comments at work, a former Torrent employee told NEWS 1130.

“This is the first time I have been made aware of any issue of this type with Kyle or any other Torrent employee,” Luers said.

He said Hanson’s actions at the protest “cannot and will not happen again.”

Hanson did not respond to an interview request sent to his work email address. Luers declined to provide Hanson’s personal contact information and did not respond when asked to pass on NEWS 1130’s request.

Protesters not surprised by hateful reaction

Both Braided Warriors members and a lawyer advising them said they weren’t surprised to see an overt display of racism directed at Indigenous people standing up for their rights.

“It happens pretty much any time anyone is mildly inconvenienced by any sort of action that we do,” Mack said.

“It’s almost commonplace to me,” said Michelle Silongan, a criminal defence lawyer based in Surrey who has provided legal advice to several protest groups, including Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion and the Braided Warriors.

“I’m kind of used to seeing that sort of attitude, so I can’t say I’m particularly shocked or appalled,” she said.

The other Braided Warriors member said Hanson’s actions were “surprisingly tame,” compared to more overt violence directed at Indigenous opponents of pipeline projects.

“So I wasn’t very surprised at it,” she said. “I was disheartened, as per usual, but it is just a reflection of how much colonial violence is ingrained into Canadian citizens.”

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