VicPD Ramps Up Presence on Pandora Avenue

Thursday’s council motion proposing a crackdown on the 900-block of Pandora Avenue has emboldened the Victoria Police Department to increase its presence in the area, coming back Friday afternoon with threats of enforcement.

The motion hadn’t even been heard yet at City Hall on Thursday morning and the bylaw sweep team was already over on Pandora clearing tents off the sidewalk in front of the office of the BC Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. And while the motion, which was approved with only one dissenting voice, is worded in a noncommittal fashion, law enforcement officers are taking it as a signal that pretty much anything goes.

This should of course come as no surprise. VicPD Chief Manak publicly stated this much as early as Friday last week, the day after a paramedic was assaulted on the Block and first responders were swarmed by dozens of unhoused residents: “Our strategy will include a marked increase in the visible police presence in the 900-block of Pandora Avenue as we rebuild relationships with our street community.”

I received notice of a large police presence shortly before 5PM on Friday, although I didn’t show up until 6PM. A source which I shall keep unnamed reported online at 4:45PM: “Bylaw is currently taking everyone’s shit on Pandora. And Vic Pd is trying to cuff anyone with drugs, paraphernalia, and anyone that is dealing.” I can attest that the latter statement is accurate even though I arrived late, as officers indeed detained a suspect in handcuffs and performed a search before letting the subject go.

Early on I witnessed an officer walking around from tent to tent, warning unhoused residents of daily presence and enforcement if they didn’t comply with the bylaw forbidding sheltering on the sidewalk. He was only one of several patrolling around, notably without the presence of bylaw officers and a cleanup crew which is otherwise the norm. Officers did not impound anything.

More concerning is that officers have engaged in at least one stop and frisk, which seemed to have been racially motivated. At around 6:40PM, officers chased after a subject who, to the best of my knowledge, was not engaging in any illegal activity. He was briefly detained for about five minutes, on Quadra Street half a block away from Pandora before being brought to the corner where the officers thoroughly searched his belongings without consent. The person was then let go without anything being confiscated. I have a recording of the encounter, which I withhold along with specifics of the interaction, because it was captured for legal observation purposes.

It is illegal for police officers in BC to perform a search without sufficient grounds to detain a person and without the consent of the subject. In addition, the Provincial Policing Standards forbid law enforcement officers from performing random police stops, especially if they are racially motivated. I have reached out to the Victoria Police Department requesting comments pertaining to its police stops policy, but did not receive a response by deadline. UPDATE 2024/07/23: VicPD just replied confirming there had been several arrests on Pandora avenue in the past few days. It claims the Provincial Policing Standards as its own guideline on police stops, and refers victims of violations to its complaint process.

I have also observed significantly more police presence on other blocks of Pandora Avenue earlier in the afternoon, including a suspect being apprehended and searched on the 800-block near a tent. While I have no interest in common criminality, I express concern that an emboldened police force will be committing rampant civil rights abuses if left unchecked, against a vulnerable population caught in the middle of a manufactured human rights crisis.