Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The Heat is on

This can't really be summer but it is beginning to feel like it. Two days of sunshine - not sure I can remember the last time that happened in Vancouver. And it looks set to continue into the Victoria Day long weekend.

Another bike ride round Stanley Park. Saw two women fighting and a guy connected to it, but not involved in the fisticuffs but who ended up in cuffs when the police arrived. It begs the question, which I put to one of the police officers - why the cuffs for someone who was not involved. The only conclusion that I could come to was the officer made a decision based on bias against the person's ethnicity and class. I tried to think of how police would react upon arriving in a similar situation in say Shaunessy and not as this was outside a restaurant in English Bay.

Of course I was interfering and being a nuisance but then that's the response one would have when one witnesses something such as that - well it would be where I am from. The cuffs only go on in the UK when it's proven or the police have a suspicion that you have committed a crime. In this situation in Vancouver today they did eventually take off the cuffs. It was at that moment that I left.

I asked the woman police officer why she was putting this guy in cuffs without knowing what has happened and that it would be better to ask questions. She responded by asking me to let her do her job. Her colleague then informed me that I should leave otherwise he'd put me in cuffs. My response - not likely.
I walked forward ten feet, away from the incident, and continued to observe. Half a minute later he comes up to me and asked why I had come back. My response - I hadn't gone anywhere and that it was he that came to me.

So that's how I passed twenty minutes of a beautiful sunny afternoon. I found it incredible though that most folk only made passing comments at the outset of the police arrival and then split.

And for the real criminals - well they had a conference today in downtown Vancouver - Goldcorp. A Canadian mining company causing environmental damage in Guatemala. And by the way the Canadian Pension Plan is investing in Goldcorp.

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