Small and welcome Truths
Vancouver Police Chief, Jim Chu, refuses to join the rose-colored sunglasses set.
He freely admits that the DTES will remain essentially a drug-addled hell-hole during and after the famous Games.
Read this story and at the least be thankful that there is one official who is not selling more fairy dust.
4 comments:
Before Expo86 there was a concerted effort to clean up the DTES and kick as many as possible out of the rooming Hotels etc...Wanting to cash in on the amazing property price boom that would happen, and kick the riff-raff off the streets.
Huh?
Nothing changed except some poor folks were displaced, and moved somewhere else.
I remember owners of the fea-bit joints thinking they were going to rent the cubicles to high-flying Expo tourists! Double-Huh?
NOT!...It is just 17 days, nothing will change. Chu is right.
So far, Chu seems a refreshing change from previous Chiefs at VPD. Similarly, Kash Heed in West Van. Both seem committed to policing with more accountability and transparency. It remains to be seen though if they will overcome the old-boys network and achieve modernization. The RCMP Commissioner has found the national force to be unmanageable because of entrenched centres of self protection.
Chu may be impressive.
But be careful with your assessment of Mr. Heed.
Is he the dude who called out the SWAT team when a hysterical parent saw someone carrying a camera tripod past a school?
And what would anonymous have said about Chief Heed if he'd done nothing and the 'hysterical parent' had turned out to be right? This is the type of reaction that causes many of us to say nothing about what we think we see or know, as we persuade ourselves, "Nah, can't be a gun; not in THIS neighbourhood. After all, we are the creme de la creme, are we not?"
I just wish we had a few more Kash Heeds and Jim Chus.
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