The Voyeur's Paradise

How They Roll

I was walking out of Carnegie Centre the other day and bumped smack
into this little documentary project being shot on the corner. Being
on the Board of Directors at Carnegie (a City run activity centre
basically mandated to provide a safe, drug-and alcohol-free, homey
hangout to the poor in the area) I know that we have a policy against
whipping out cameras and sticking them in local people's faces, and
since I had not been asked to approve any such activity, I was kind of
curious to learn what this project was. I first asked cop #1 (the one
who looks like he's expecting a mob to rush the camera any second) but
he ignored me, and the other cop was too busy frontin' for the camera,
so I finally turned to the Carnegie security person who was watching
the corner at that moment. He said he hadn't heard anything about the
project, but that both the participating cops were "regulars" and
"real fucking pricks".

So I followed the little crew into the alley behind Carnegie, where I
finally got one of the film guys to acknowledge me and inform me "We
are an independent company from Chicago". The whole time, he was
very carefully holding his credentials & clipboard out of my line of
sight. I let him know that I was able to represent the organization
that runs the building they were shooting, and suggested that he talk
to some local people other than these two cops, at which point he
turned away from me without another word.

The bald cop kept up his monologue on all the gruesome stuff that goes
on in the neighbourhood, "murders, fights over drugs, prostitution,
sexual assaults (that's rape to you guys down in the states), people
being held prisoner in these hotel rooms ..." Meanwhile, knots of
people who had been using the alley hurriedly picked up their stuff
and ran, the camera tracking them.

I wasn't the only person following the shoot out of curiosity: there
was another guy I recognized tagging along, a Native guy. I chatted
with him for a bit, and then he talked to the clipboard guy, saying
he'd be happy to talk on camera, he's a local and an addict ...
clipboard guy said yeah sure, wrote down his name ("Mike") and said
we'll be in touch. Mike rolled his eyes at me and wandered off.

The bald cop then led the crew up to a pair of people in orange vests
who were wheeling a sharps container through the alley. "These," he
declared authoritatively to the camera, "are volunteers who go through
the alleys collecting used needles, which helps to slow the rate of
HIV infection." "Actually," said the woman with the camera in her
face, "we are City employees from the Carnegie Street Project. We do
on the spot health questionnaires, advocacy, help people get on
welfare and into housing, co-ordinate with the street nurses, and dispense
condoms, syringes and clean water." "Oh. Sorry," said officer
Straight Trippin'.

Continuing his monologue, the bald cop then declared that here in BC,
marijuana is a "gateway" to harder drugs like crack cocaine or heroin,
and because it is so much stronger than what was available in the 60s,
it is a hard drug itself, with all the attendant dangers. "You ask any of these people down here, and you ask them what their first drug was," he intoned, "and they'll say 'alcohol and marijuana.'" He's right about one thing, I was thinking. Alcohol.

At this stage I decided I had seen enough. Both the cops and film
crew were studiously ignoring me and keeping their backs to my camera
(gettin' the word out any way you can, eh boys?) so I headed home with
visions of publishing on IndyMedia flashing in my head. Perhaps with
a link to this story: Vancouver police impersonate journalists to bust protest leader.

Preview goes to you punks on Buzznet, of course!