Community groups accuse VPD officers of loitering outside supervised drug consumption sites

Rafferty Baker · CBC News

· Posted: May 07, 2025 10:27 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 minutes ago

A postulation of groups that enactment successful Vancouver's Downtown Eastside accidental there's been an summation successful constabulary serviceman beingness extracurricular Insite and different supervised cause depletion sites successful the neighbourhood, resulting successful radical being deterred from accessing harm-reduction services.

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) has a policing strategy underway meant to ace down connected organized and convulsive transgression successful the neighbourhood — which includes much officers. But a spokesperson said it's a "false narrative" that officers are loitering extracurricular the harm-reduction sites.

The assertion comes from Police Oversight With Evidence and Research (POWER), a probe project founded past twelvemonth by Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) and Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society (WAHRS). Pivot Legal Society is besides calling connected the VPD to debar having a beingness extracurricular the sites.

"Being contiguous outside, without immoderate benignant of telephone is, we would say, doing much harm than good," said Caitlin Shane, a unit lawyer with Pivot.

According to Shane, successful the last few months, POWER has received an summation successful complaints from unit astatine Insite and different supervised depletion sites astir constabulary either blocking entrances, loitering or parking VPD cars outside. 

"What we're hearing, peculiarly from work providers, as good arsenic patrons, is that this constabulary beingness is deterring radical from accessing the life-saving services inside," she said.

The anecdotal accounts of the effects of constabulary beingness astatine the sites are supported by peer-reviewed probe into the issue, published successful 2019 in the International Journal of Drug Policy.

The groups included 2 circumstantial examples successful their media release. Both are reports from March of a VPD cruiser being parked extracurricular Insite, successful the 100-block of East Hastings Street for an extended period. Two of the provided images look to amusement unoccupied vehicles, portion a 3rd appears to show one of the aforesaid vehicles with headlight on.

"The conception that a parked and unoccupied constabulary car would deter idiosyncratic is, rather frankly, silly," said VPD's Sgt. Steve Addison connected Tuesday. "The communicative these organizations are spinning to the media is detached from world connected the streets."

Shane maintains that whether oregon not a police conveyance is occupied, it tin person an interaction connected the fig of radical utilizing the installation — and she claims it's portion of a broader signifier successful caller months.

Informal agreement?

According to Shane, there's an statement successful spot betwixt unit astatine Insite and the VPD to not artifact the entranceway oregon different deter access. She's asking that the statement beryllium honoured and formalized.

Addison, speaking connected behalf of the constabulary department, said he's not alert of immoderate specified agreement.

Shane said there's interior correspondence from VPD and Pivot successful 2022 confirming the beingness of the informal argumentation for officers not to artifact entree to supervised depletion sites, but the information that Addison isn't alert of it reinforces the request to formalize it.

According to Addison, officers are supportive of the harm-reduction facilities and "have a tremendous magnitude of compassion" for the radical struggling with cause addiction successful the community.

Last year, 2,253 radical were killed by unregulated drugs successful British Columbia, according to the B.C. Coroners Service.

"We promote radical to usage supervised depletion sites, harm-reduction sites, arsenic opposed to utilizing connected the street, but it hasn't been an enforcement precedence for many, galore years for america to arrest, jail, prosecute radical successful the Downtown Eastside who are surviving with substance usage issues," said Addison.

Task Force Barrage

Addison said that since mid-February, the policing strategy successful the Downtown Eastside, dubbed Task Force Barrage, has included an summation successful officers successful the neighbourhood, Chinatown and Gastown — and possibly that could explicate the summation astir supervised depletion sites.

"Just by virtuousness of the information we've got much officers retired there, you're going to spot much there," helium said.

VPD received an further $5 cardinal for Task Force Barrage, on apical of the force's $453 cardinal fund for 2025.