Arrests made during clash with police as decampment begins on Downtown Eastside

Tensions between police and activists on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside boiled over Tuesday afternoon, as city crews began decamping residents from a stretch of East Hastings Street.

According to the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), a man had a confrontation with security at Carnegie Community Centre, and up to ten officers responded by arresting the man, tying him up, and putting him in the back of a police van.

Speaking to CityNews, Vince Tao with VANDU says a woman then threw her coat at police, who arrested her, further upsetting the crowd which had gathered on the street.

“There were a lot of observers there who [were] quite upset about the brutality and violence that police were using on this guy,” Tao said.

Multiple members of VANDU were arrested, according to Tao, who also says police used pepper spray on the crowd, with some ending up with injuries.

Tao says Meenakshi Mannoe, criminalization and policing campaigner at Pivot Legal Society, was also one of those arrested during the melee.

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In a statement, the Vancouver Police Department says several of its members were assaulted after the initial arrest of a man outside Carnegie. The VPD did not confirm how many officers were hurt, or how bad their injuries were.

Const. Tania Visintin says officers were in the area at the request of the City of Vancouver to stand by and keep the peace while city workers conducted the decampment on East Hastings Street.

Tao says his heart is “broken” for his friends and loved ones, who were caught up in the afternoon’s incident.

On July 25, Vancouver’s fire chief issued an order for the immediate removal of the structures within three days. The deadline was initially extended to Aug. 3, only to be again postponed another week.

At the time, Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services admitted that the deadline would likely not be met. However, members stressed the importance of access to windows and doors in the event of an emergency.

“Overall, that’s the majority of where our fires are occurring, our alarms are occurring … our incendiary fires, our arson fires are all occurring down there,” Captain Matt Trudeau told CityNews.

Anna Cooper a lawyer with Pivot Legal Society admits fire safety is important. However, she argues city crews are not considering other safety issues in this sweep, “including simply how unsafe it is to shelter alone, and that when people are force-evicted from Hastings, that is what will happen.”

“A quick scan through the media stories of unhoused people being severely injured and dying from fires, it’s overwhelmingly going to show you that people were isolated when that happened, not in congregate settings,” she said.

Police and city staff used to clear tents and belongings off East Hastings Street every morning, but that stopped at the beginning of July after years of opposition from advocates.

– With files from Kurtis Doering and John Ackermann