2 arrested for assault during CRAB Park ‘clean up’: Vancouver police

Two people were arrested at Vancouver’s CRAB Park Wednesday morning after police claim an officer and park ranger were assaulted while trying to enforce city by-laws.

In a statement to CityNews, the Vancouver Park Board says the ranger was injured during their “daily duties.” It goes on to say that rangers are currently going to CRAB Park daily to speak with residents “regarding tents and speak to individuals regarding any other issues.”

“Throughout the coming weeks, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation will continue working with people sheltering in the park to do general clean-ups of CRAB Park,” the Park Board said.

Vancouver Police Department Const. Tania Visintin says one person in the encampment “became hostile and used a tent pole as a weapon to assault two VPD officers.”

“As that man was being taken into custody, a second person from the encampment assaulted an officer. A crowd formed around the officers, and additional police responded to the park to restore order,” she said.

Visintin explains a 26-year-old man and a 31-year-old woman were arrested for assault and taken to jail.

The arrests come as the Park Board is stepping up enforcement of the city’s tenting by-laws on the south side of the park, which is outside of the sanctioned camp area.

A section of CRAB Park became the first legal encampment after winning a BC Supreme Court decision in January 2022. A lawyer on that case said at the time that the court ruling at CRAB Park and other courts in Canada ruling in favour of people living in camps, reinforce people’s right to shelter.

But the Park Board says its by-law enforcement is not a “decampment.”

“We’re not asking people to leave, we’re asking for people to comply with the by-law. Park Rangers will be prepared to remove non-essential items and store essential items for people sheltering in the park,” the Park Board said in its statement.

“The Park Control By-law is in place for people to shelter from dusk to dawn. Outside of the General Manager’s designated area, people are allowed to shelter overnight, so long as they pack up their tents in the morning.”

Significant ‘escalation’ of city enforcement and tent removals, advocate says

However, Ryan Sudds, an organizer with StopTheSweeps, says Park Board rangers have been at CRAB Park in the morning for the better part of the last two weeks.

“They have been doing some form of sweeps for many days, telling residents that they need to pack up,” he explained.

Sudds says that on Wednesday, residents saw a “significant escalation” where rangers were forcibly taking people’s tents.

“[They were] removing people’s tents while people were still in them, threatening arrest.” Sudds claims a resident was assaulted while in their tent, and was then arrested by VPD officers.

Sudds explains that the two people who ended up being arrested had been forced to move on Tuesday, and when asked to move again on Wednesday, “they’re tired, they don’t want to move. [But] when police say you got to move, you got to go.”

“The resident is getting upset, they’re getting angry. And the resident finally agrees and says, ‘You know what, I’ll take my tent down. I’ll do it. Just give me space,'” Sudds told CityNews.

“They’re surrounded by cops and police, they just want some privacy to do it. The police and park rangers refused to step back and this continued to escalate the situation.

“The park rangers actually started doing a 60 [second] countdown, saying, ‘We’re gonna start at 60.’ And then at the end of this, we’re going to take your tent, whether you’re in it or not. … So that is what led to this assault.”

Sudds explains that residents have been forced to set up tents and homes outside of the designated encampment area because it’s been full for many months.

He is questioning what the city achieved by forcibly moving the residents, which included a 72-year-old man with mobility issues.

“I don’t know what was accomplished by the very hard approach and ultimately violent approach that the park board and police took. The housing crisis is not closer to getting solved.”

“You’ve got two people in jail, there was like, there was an Indigenous man pinned on the ground who couldn’t breathe today because he wouldn’t leave his tent. And I don’t know what that accomplishes,” Sudds continued.

He says Wednesday’s altercation was the “most violent” tent decampment he’s seen in two and a half years.

“I really want to couch these assaults, in that, you’ve got 10 police with guns, you’ve got park rangers surrounding two people in a tent. And I really think when we think about what assault looks like, and what assault is, taking down someone’s tent while they’re in it — we can all imagine how we would feel having our homes assaulted like that,” he said.

While the city and rangers say that they will store personal belongings and tents for people who are told to move, Sudds says he has yet to hear a “success story” of someone receiving their belongings back from the City of Vancouver.

“It’s not a reliable system. What it seems to be, the storage system in my mind, is more a way to say, ‘We’re evicting this person, we’re decamping them but don’t worry, we’ve got storage,’ but it’s more of like a performative storage,” he said.

“Ultimately, it’s going into garbage man. It’s labeled personal storage, [but] we’re dealing with the garbage department who’s taking this stuff away, or park rangers. So, their whole mentality is that people’s stuff is garbage.”

–With files from Cole Schisler