Winnipeg Copwatch

Two years ago today, on September 2nd, 2007, Wilfred Asham died inside Winnipeg’s Public Safety Building under mysterious circumstances. His family is inviting community members out tonight to a vigil they’re holding on the second anniversary of his death.

Asham’s family have been looking for answers after the police failed to answer a number of questions around the death of this otherwise healthy nineteen-year-old, including how he came to have a seizure when he has no history of seizures, and how police account for his bruised face and altered nose.

The vigil takes place tonight from 9 to 11pm outside the Public Safety Building, at 151 Princess Street.

The M.s. Citizenship Feminist Collective is encouraging people to sign a petition to return the definition of sexual assault on the police’s CrimeStat service to one that includes attacks where the perpetrator is known to the victim.

“As of January 1 2008, Winnipeg Police Services’ CrimeStat service changed the definition of sexual assault to ‘an offence that combines the components of assault with circumstances of a sexual nature where the suspect is not known to the victim’ (emphasis added) from the definition based on the Criminal Code which includes sexual assaults where the suspect is known or unknown to the victim.  Over 78% of assault in Winnipeg is perpetrated by a suspect known to the victim (Statistic found in ‘Mean Streets?’ Comak, Chopyk and Wood, p.7). This definition change is not in line with Crimestat’s stated principles of disseminating accurate information and promoting transparency and accountability. Winnipeg is the only Canadian city which reports on sexual assaults in this way (As reported by Gabrielle Giroday in the article “ Board wants police website to report all sexual assaults” in the Winnipeg Free Press, May 29, 2009)

We believe that finding holistic and effective solutions to domestic and sexual abuse begins with being given accurate information.”

Saturday, June 6th, 2009 at Kildonan Park (South Picnic Shelter)
Run start time – 9:30 a.m.

Support social justice and human rights by joining the Run for Rights. You can walk, cycle, run, wheel or rollerblade a 5 km or 10 km route.  If you would like to help raise funds for Winnipeg Copwatch, print off and fill out the pledge form. You do not need to pre-register or sign up in advance.
Donation forms will also be available at the registration table.  Registration will start at 8:30 a.m. on the morning of the run.  There is no minimum amount required to participate!

Winnipeg Copwatch is discouraged to hear of another case of Winnipeg police illegally seizing video equipment.  Local media have reported the seizure on Wednesday of a video camera belonging to local filmmaker John Paskievich, known locally for his book of photography, The North End.  To our knowledge, the police have yet to comment publicly on the matter.

The seizure is not an isolated incident.  Last summer, Paul St. Laurent reported that he had the memory card of his camera confiscated by police, and was arrested for “intimidation of an officer,” though he explains that he was at least as far from the incident as other bystanders.

In late 2007, Winnipeg police confiscated the camera of CBC cameraperson Don Scott and arrested him after he refused to stop filming an incident.  Charges were later dropped.

Jon Schledewitz, a photographer then working for the Winnipeg Sun, was arrested and had his camera taken by police in 2006 while taking photographs of police arresting participants in the Critical Mass bicycle ride.  Allegations of police misconduct arose at the event.

Other people known to Copwatch have reported having equipment confiscated, being intimidated into turning their cameras off, and being instructed to delete footage and still photos from digital cameras.

“These incidents are especially worrisome to Copwatch because they have the potential to compromise the rights of all citizens, including those in our group, to oversee the police,” said Copwatch volunteer Alex Paterson.  “Given the great power police wield, transparency and scrutiny are of the utmost importance.”

Kelly Toughill, board member of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, warned last month that “[t]he police practice of obstructing journalists engaged in crime reporting is disturbingly common in Canada.”

Copwatch is calling on Chief McCaskill to clarify the Winnipeg Police Service’s policy when it comes to recording equipment.  In particular, we are asking him to publicly recognize

• the right of citizens and journalists to use recording equipment in public, and to record interactions involving the police;
• that police cannot demand that people stop recording in a way that does not interfere with police;
• that police cannot demand the deletion of photos or footage;
• that police cannot arbitrarily seize equipment;
• that police cannot arrest people for making recordings;
• that police cannot make spurious arrests with the aim of seizing equipment or footage;
• that police cannot themselves destroy footage taken by others; and,
• that taking footage or photographs of police in itself does not constitute “intimidation of an officer”, or any other criminal code offence.

Copwatch would also like the chief to clarify what disciplinary action is to be taken when officers are in violation of these rules.

Roanna Hepburn is a resident of Winnipeg, community activist, grandmother and great grandmother currently campaigning the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba for a full and independent investigation into an act of violence committed against her granddaughter by members of the Winnipeg Police Service.

• Listen to a radio interview with Roanna Hepburn on police brutality in Winnipeg.

“Whereas, the highest rate of acts of violence against women in Canada are committed against First Nation’s Women; And whereas, Canadian police services are supposed to help stop those acts from occurring and not perpetuate them; And whereas, police violence targeting First Nations peoples and communities is a systemic problem across Canada and especially in Manitoba; And whereas, allegations of police brutality committed against Stephanie Kay Warren on March 1, 2009 by Winnipeg police are incredibly serious and demand full investigation;

We, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba to hold a full and independent investigation into the case of Stephanie Kay Warren; Moreover, we demand that an independent provincial task force be created to investigate police brutality, especially against First Nations peoples and communities.”

• Download the petition.

Please return signed petitions to Mondragon, 91 Albert Street, or 485 Selkirk Avenue no later than May 14. They will be submitted to the Premier on or soon after May 15.

• Update: The petition drive has been extended, since the province will not accept it until after the complaint working its way through the Law Enforcement Review Agency (LERA) is closed.  LERA is generally regarded as an ineffective accountability body; the independent investigation being called for in the petition would be much more valuable.  All this is to say that if you are still interested in helping with this initiative, please do!

“Racialized Policing Practices in Winnipeg”: public lecture by Elizabeth Comack, Sociology Professor and author of The Power to Criminalize: Violence, Inequality, and the Law. Wednesday, March 25 at 12:30, the University of Manitoba, 307 Tier Building.

The Provincial Police Act is being reviewed for the first time in nearly 80 years. The 2007 report on the Racialized Communities and Police Services Project by the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, and the 1991 report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba have pointed to systemic problems in police accountability in this province. The new Act will lay out how municipal police boards, a provincial police commission, and an independent investigations unit will be structured.

Winnipeg Copwatch’s recommendations include:

• Municipal police boards and the provincial police commission should be democratically elected
• The police commission should not include police or former police due to conflict of interest
• The police commission should provide free supports to people filing a complaint against the police
• Complaints should not be shown to the police until after the police have been questioned, and police should be separated before questioning to prevent collusion
• Non-criminal charges against the police should not be investigated by a police service
• The police boards should be empowered to hire and dismiss the police chief

Read the full report on Winnipeg Copwatch’s Recommendations on the Provincial Police Act Review.

We encourage you to participate in the process. There are two ways to do so:

1. Attend a public consultation: Wednesday 4 March, at 7pm at the Freight House Bingo Hall at 200 Isabel Street (register by calling 945-4773); or,
2. Fill out the province’s on-line questionnaire.

photo by greg.g

A presentation and discussion on police, power and justice

Wednesday, October 22, 7pm
Crossways in Common
222 Furby Street at Broadway

Featuring:

Tamar Hopkins (Melbourne, Australia)
Tamar Hopkins is an Australian lawyer who has been working on police violence issues faced by newly arrived African and Afghani Australian communities for the past three years. She is researching police accountability strategies that meet the needs of victims of police rights abuses.

Nahanni Fontaine (Winnipeg)
Nahanni Fontaine is the Director of Justice for the Southern Chiefs’ Organization.

Elizabeth Comack (Winnipeg)
Dr. Elizabeth Comack is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Manitoba. She has published in the areas of policing inner-city communities, social inequality and the law, the criminalization of women, and gender and violence.

Everyone is welcome & admission is free.
Snacks and bus tickets provided.
Children are welcome. Child-minding available.

Presented by Winnipeg Copwatch
wpgcopwatch@gmail.com
www.winnipegcopwatch.org

Generously sponsored by
the University of Winnipeg Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies

1) Run for Rights

Winnipeg Copwatch will be participating in the 7th annual Run for Rights held at 8:30am Kildonan Park on Saturday June 7th 2008. The run is aimed to raise money in support of Winnipeg organizations working for social justice and human rights, because we cant all have government funding, or do not necessarily want government funding. But anyways, Copwatch is participating and we will be collecting pledges to cover our day to day expenses and fund our actual copwatch patrols.

Copwatch is very excited to be working with other great organizations in Winnipeg in the struggle for tangible human rights. For more information, check out the Run for Rights website, or you can download our pledge sheet(PDF) and start asking everyone you know for the money, its “only” 10km, or 5km, or you can walk, bike, run, or whatever you want.

2) Patrols

Copwatch has recently gone on two patrols.  In one of our encounters officers rushed one of our video cameras and demanded we step back. At this point the person responsible for liaising with the police informed them that we were not there to interfere, we would stand back and we are simply observing. Officers then threatened to seize the video camera and continue to advise us that we were in a dangerous neighborhood and “you guys are gonna get it”. What that individual officer meant at that moment in time I suppose we will never know. It is however unfortunate that that two of the six officers present were threatening to seize a video camera because we were present and documenting their actions.

Our role is not to interfere or to escalate the situation. We are simply observing police interactions with citizens because the Law Enforcement Review Agency in charge of handling police complaints is ineffective without video or audio evidence. We also feel that officers will operate according to their core values which include respect and integrity if people are observing, whether Copwatch or people from the neighbourhood. The mentality of “war” that the police have with certain neighbourhoods its very dangerous and must change.

3) Get involved!

We are continually looking for people who are interested in getting involved in this type of work. Whether you are interested in going on patrols, helping us organize workshops, or just wanting to assist in the day-to-day operations of Copwatch, we need you! Just ring us up at 942-1588 or email us in our contact us section.

On a final and sad note for this post, the NYPD detectives that fired over 50 shots to kill Sean Bell and injure his friends less than a day before his wedding were acquitted from all charges.
+ Police acquitted over NY shooting BBC News.
+ Were New York cops trigger happy? BBC News.

Two days ago marked the 12^th annual International Day against Police Brutality. It began in 1997 as a joint initiative by the Montreal Collectif Opposé à la Brutalité Policière (Collective Opposed to Police Brutality) and the Black Flag group in Switzerland in response to the beating deaths of two children, aged 11 and 12 by Swiss police.

March 15^th 2008 began in a parking lot located near the corner of Logan and Main street. People began arriving close to 6pm and it was already obvious that police were present. There were two police cruisers on Main Street looking onto the parking lot, and two to three more circling around the backlane to the parking lot which was where people were congregating. A man in a white van with tinted windows was also spotted across on the west side of Main Street taking photos then returning to his vehicle when spotted and pointed out.

The following is a write up from Jo Redsky from the march.

I just wanted to let everyone know on March 15, Saturday afternoon I
attended an “International Day Against Police Brutality March” held by
Cop Watch, a non-profit Organization to watch and observe, educate
people if one believes they are being treated unfairly by the Police.
The event was held in Downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba. I invited my cousin
Marlene to join me in this event. As the March continued, I was in the
crowd marching, my cousin Marlene in her Pick up truck following behind
the march, was suddenly stopped by the Winnipeg Police. More police
officers surrounded the pick up truck, indicating a complete stop.
Marlene at the time of incident was using her “flashers”, to signify she
was driving leisurely behind. I noticed fellow marchers reacting to the
sudden stop of her truck, by the Winnipeg Police. I started towards the
confrontation, confused to why the police would stop my cousin, who has
never participated in a march like this before, was being stopped for
questioning.
“My cousin knows of the real problems we face. Let us look at the
Brutality Matthew Dumas, and JJ Harper, faced from passed cruelty and
violence brought to you by THE POLICE, and what our Anishanabe people
face in everyday city and rural injustice, discrimination of the law of
peace and justice or to “Serve And To Protect”.

I screamed and hollowed at the police to leave Marlene alone, but the
one officer asked Marlene if she would present her registration and
driver’s license. I asked the officer to explain what Marlene was doing
wrong. In a quick reaction I took up my hand drum and sang, to signify
that racism was upon this episode, and then with out notice another
woman joined me with her hand drum, to use as our only weapon of
protection, we continued to sing; meanwhile our noble and righteous
Winnipeg Police was becoming agitated by our presents of song. I started
to move forward from adrenaline. Marlene was still detained right at the
spot, so I proceeded to go back to where Marlene was and was confronted
by another police officer who stated to me that if I didn’t move on, I
would be ticketed for being off the sidewalks, while the marchers were
observed everywhere, from sidewalk, to street.

An unknown Cop Watch lady, came forward between an officer and me and
said lets not be intimidate by his actions of sour mouth (police). The
now eight (8) Police officers were surrounding me like I was a fugitive
of crime, like I was secured for a hostile invader.

“I was one of many native woman standing up for my views of police
injustice while there were a dozen WPS surrounding me, like I was a
threat. I just moved on the March to the old Remand Center, and then
stopped for 20 minutes spoke. I was really upset now. I thought and
spoke about Connie and Ty Jacobs who were murdered by the police in
Alberta. I want to plan a memorial at the R.C.M.P, Division D
headquarters on Portage Ave, Saturday March 22, 2008, at 2 pm. It has
now been 10 years since Connie and Ty Jacobs were killed by aggressive
force. Ty Jacobs will be 19 years old today. We want the abuse and
violence to our people to stop, so lets get rid of the “Eliminate the
Indian problem!” mentality.

In Sisterhood,
Jo Redsky
Wolf clan

Winnipeg Copwatch will also be attending the memorial for Connie and Ty Jacobs on March 22. Ty Jacbos would have been 19 a few days ago. The memorial will take place at the RCMP Div-D HQ at Portage Ave and Dominion Street.