'Excessive Forces' claims against VPD...what a surprise...

The news hour and newspapers this weekend were once again riddled with excessive forces claims against the Vancouver Police Department; this time against the Canine Unit.
 “Skateboarder Chris Evans has launched a notice of civil claim in B.C. Supreme Court alleging that Const. Richard Ronald Lee committed assault and battery using his police dog in an incident in June. Evans, 33, says he grew frustrated when a bus passed him by on East Hastings Street, and he struck a bus with his board. He had his headphones on and didn’t know what hit him when a police dog latched onto his leg, he said.” (Excerpt taken from The Province; link for article below)

http://www.theprovince.com/news/change+handling+policy+despite+bite+injury+lawsuit/6062954/story.html

After reading this article, I had the impression that the suspect (Chris Evans) was simply an agreeable young man, minding his business in the downtown Eastside when he was aggressively and gratuitously attacked by a malicious police dog. I was lead to believe, by the reporter, that the suspect had no warning that he was being pursued by police, or in danger of having a dog sent on him.

After reading the article in several different newspapers, I had a few warning bells going off in my head. First of all, this man smashed a public bus window with his skateboard.
Although briefly mentioned in the story, it does not appear that the media finds this fact to be relevant to the case. I’m sorry, but I was raised to believe that damaging property, any property, let alone city, is a) childish and immature and b) against the law. So, unless something has changed in the past year, this man has committed a crime.

Secondly, the suspect claims that “the first contact I had with the police was the police dog,” he said. “I didn’t know the police were around.”

Now, hold on a second. Police officers are required to give a verbal warning to the suspect they are in pursuit of, before doing anything, especially releasing their dog on that suspect. And I know without a doubt that this suspect was indeed given that verbal warning, informing him that he was under arrest. What the media did not report was the fact that after this verbal warning was issued the suspect fled the area on his skateboard. Unless I’m mistaken, that’s considered resisting arrest. At this point, the officer would have (and did) given another verbal warning that if the suspect continued to run the officer would release his dog. So, when the suspect Chris did not stop after two warnings, the dog was released. No offense to him, but that’s a pretty ill-advised move, buddy.

By now, the police dog has been released and is in hot pursuit of the suspect. Now if I was in Chris’ situation and I had an 80lb German Shepard breathing down my back, I’d probably give in to the officer’s request to stop where I was. And that’s the beauty of the situation - if the suspect ‘gives up’ while being pursued by a police dog, that officer has to call his dog off the chase immediately. So there you go Chris, you had three opportunities to avoid your ‘unprovoked’ dog bite.

Granted, the suspect’s injury was pretty gruesome; 100 staples to close a leg wound? Ouch. Yet, to claim that the bite ‘came out of nowhere’ and to imply that he was undeserving of being bitten is bullshit.

This is yet another case where the media has chosen to take sides with a dirt bag criminal and gang up on the city’s police force. In my opinion, we see this happening far too often. While the police are out there, day and night, protecting our families and trying to clean up the streets of Vancouver, the media and other groups are watching them like hawks, ready to wrongly interpret every move they make.

If the media was out there battling against angry mobs of violent rioters during the 2011 Stanley Cup riot, then yeah, maybe their criticism would be warranted; but they weren’t. It’s depressing for me to see that there are such a small number of people that stand up for our policemen. Everybody is so quick to criticize police action, and think that they could handle police circumstances better than our officers. So my response to those people is, get out there and do it yourself then, if you’re such a talented police officer.

I myself feel at ease knowing that our VPD is out there on the streets keeping us safe. I’m glad that men like Chris Evans aren’t allowed to run around smashing bus windows because they feel ‘frustrated.’ So now are we allowed to smash other people in the face with our skateboard because we are angry with them?

I urge people to look at the big picture. Look beyond the information that the media selectively presents to you and examine the other side of the story.