B.C. Human Rights Commissioner probes VPD media restrictions at DTES decampment
Posted December 12, 2023 4:09 pm.
Last Updated December 12, 2023 4:10 pm.
B.C.’s Human Rights Commissioner has launched an inquiry into the Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD) handling of the Downtown Eastside decampment earlier this year.
This comes after allegations that the VPD restricted media coverage during the April 2023 tent and structure removal along East Hastings.
In a statement, Kasari Govender expressed concern over reports that Vancouver Police officers denied journalists access to certain areas.
Govender also emphasized the crucial need for media to be able to uncover potential human rights violations during police operations involving marginalized people.
“When police may potentially come into conflict with some of society’s most marginalized people during a police operation, allegations of media being excluded or restricted from reporting on those operations raise serious red flags and merit investigation,” the statement read.
“The B.C. public rely on the media to gather and publish information, including on any potential human rights violations. The press plays a key role in our democracy and the protection of human rights.”
Govender cites “multiple reports” of journalists facing blockades or restricted access during the tent-clearing operation.
She tells CityNews her office is now looking into “what happened during that time with the media.”
“Were the media excluded or restricted from that zone? Under what legal authority? Who made those decisions? And, ultimately, is that in accordance with human rights laws and principles,” Govender explained.
The commissioner says it recently served the VPD with an order requiring the department release data and information to the office.
“The process is really up to me to decide. In these, we’re doing quite a narrow, deep investigation, so really looking at a very small period of time, trying to understand what happened during that time,” Govender explained.
She says in addition to looking at the data from the City of Vancouver and police, her office will also be speaking with media and organizations who were there during the decampment.
“In my view and certainly in the views of many, the freedom of our press and having a media that is independent and free to report means that we have a much more robust democracy,” Govender said.
“In fact, I think it’s essential to a functioning democracy for us all to be able to understand the truth of what’s happening and have accountability and transparency, particularly in our public authorities, particularly where our public authorities are interacting with highly marginalized people. That’s what’s happening here. We knew police were going in to a situation where there’s highly marginalized people who are living on the streets, and we want to ensure there’s oversight in what’s happening with that.”
VPD says it ‘[supports] press freedom’
The Vancouver Police Board denied claims last month and said there were no media exclusion zones, explaining that reporters were only gathered at a “muster point” for safety reasons.
In a statement to CityNews Tuesday, the VPD said it “[supports] press freedom” and that it “took proactive measures to ensure there would always be robust media access to the Hastings Street Encampment Zone during the decampment process.”
“Within minutes of deploying officers into the encampment zone on the morning of April 5, we began reaching out to media to facilitate access. We invited a television pool camera and a reporter into the encampment zone to immediately begin reporting on the start of the decampment. We obtained assurances that the television pool camera and reporter would share their reporting with television agencies that were not present. We established a media staging area to coordinate access for other reporters who wanted to enter the encampment zone, and we had personnel on the ground to help guide reporters into the staging area,” the statement explained.
It went on to say that, “there were moments, particularly during the first hour of the deployment” that same day “when access was temporarily restricted.”
“This included times when large vehicles and heavy machinery were being moved into the encampment zone, when equipment was being unloaded from trucks, and when there were concerns about the safety of workers and people within the encampment,” the VPD explained.
“In these moments, members of the media and the public were asked to remain behind a perimeter line. During those brief restrictions, media and members of the public continued to have clear sightlines toward the work taking place. Once safety concerns were addressed, we immediately took steps to facilitate full and unfettered media access throughout the encampment zone. This access was reflected in extensive reporting from within the encampment zone that show reporters moving without restriction as the process was taking place.”
During the decampment, the City of Vancouver’s traffic cameras showing the Main and Hastings intersection went down for about a half hour. When asked during a news conference on April 5 why that happened, the city’s manager chalked the issue up to an “inadvertent technical error on the part of our staff” that led to the outage.
“That was a mistake as we’re working to manage the technology around this, so, once that camera was brought to our attention we did remedy that error,” City Manager Paul Mochrie said at the time.
“That camera is now online, and then … generally this is obviously a very complex operation. We are working to provide as much transparency as possible.”
When asked about transparency at the time, Chief Const. Adam Palmer noted the pool camera at the scene “for media to monitor what’s going on.”
He also pointed out there were “lots of people” with smart phones who were sharing video and photos from the decampment zone, with some streaming from the area.
-With files from The Canadian Press
