Victoria's policing of the downtown community isn't merely tone deaf, but absolutely over the top. Should we be more worried about law enforcement than gangs, from a public safety standpoint?
This morning, at around 5:50, Victoria Police carried out a high-risk arrest warrant at Mike Gidora Place, a supportive housing complex on Pandora Avenue. And they had the brilliant idea to use a flash bang grenade to do it.
To those of you who don’t know what a flashbang, or stun grenade, is, the name says it. It’s a grenade that emits a dazzling magnesium flash along with a deafening noise, meant to incapacitate perpetrators in high-risk situations, such as hostage-taking scenarios. To put things into perspective, so bright is the flash that I was able to see it from four doors away, through my blinds, without a direct line of sight with the building, while the noise level compared to that of a gunshot or proximate lightning strike.
And the police thought it was a brilliant idea to use it in a supportive housing complex, full of people with mental health disorders such as PTSD and who’ve overwhelmingly experienced adverse police encounters. By two troopers in military gear, of course.
According to a reliable source, it was even used preemptively, indoors, in a small room, because, well, you never know what’s on the other side of that door. And it turns out that while VicPD did arrest two men related to the incident, the subject of the warrant wasn’t even there. That’s why it’s a bad idea to use paramilitary riot gear when no one knows what’s on the other side of the door.
Whenever our militarised police force flashes its assault weapons in public in such a brazen display of foolhardiness, I feel like we need to have this public safety conversation. Who poses the greater risk: criminal gangs? or police officers? At least the former don’t walk around downtown in broad daylight carrying assault rifles and stun grenades giving us a taste of what a war zone is like.
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