|
John Richardson taking affidavits for the original report,
To Serve and Protect, published in 2002.
Pivot Legal Society focuses its energy
on strategic legal action in four main areas:
Policing achievements:
The Vancouver Police department (VPD) has changed
its breach arrest policy, property seizure policy, notebook
policy and other policies as a result of Pivot’s compound
police complaint, filed in 2003 [see
report To Serve and Protect].
"Breach" policy
Some of the most significant changes are to
the VPD "breach" policy, which governs the practice
of arresting and removing people to other locations without
charges.
The new policy corrects specifically several
errors in existing practices, setting out, for example, that
"Vehement emotional verbal expression of disagreement
with police does not constitute a breach of the peace."
It also forbids transporting people to isolated
locations or other municipalities, and requires officers to
comply with their "duty of care" by considering
vulnerabilities, such as suitability of clothing and mental
state, before "breaching" people.
|
|
Seizure
of property and keeping of police notebooks
Two other changes to VPD policies touch on seizure
of property and keeping of police notebooks.
The RCMP, in their investigation of the Pivot
complaints, found that VPD officers were not documenting property
seized correctly and also found the quality of notebook records
kept by VPD officers were substandard.
The new policies set strict guidelines governing
police documentation of property seized and interactions with
the public.
As a result of the 50 complaints, in 2005 the
Solicitor General ordered an audit of the Police Complaints
Process in B.C.
[ go to
the Policing page for more about this issue ]
Addiction achievements:
Health centre
In 2003, Pivot intervened in the Supreme Court
on behalf of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU)
to successfully defend a health centre for drug-addicted persons
under challenge by a local merchant's association.
Continued...
| 1 | 2
| 3
| next
|
