Criminal Element are VANOC and IOC

"Criminal Element" is VANOC and IOC
ORN says state violence disproportionate to protest damage

by Moira Peters, Vancouver Media Coop, February 13, 2010

Police used disproportionate violence in arresting and detaining protesters during this morning's Olympics resistance "Heart Attack" march, said representatives of the Olympics Resistance Network (ORN) at a press conference this afternoon in Pigeon Park in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

"We witnessed excessive and disproportionate use of state forces," said Peggy Lee, of ORN's legal committee.

She described hundreds of riot police armed with a diverse array of weapons, including AR-15 assault rifles, shields and batons, forcibly detaining unarmed protesters.

An unconfirmed 13-15 arrests were made, all against peaceful protesters who had not caused property damage, including several protesters who were arrested after the demonstration had dispersed and they were leaving the intersection of Robson and Jervis Streets, according to Lee.

A Vancouver Police Department release today described a "criminal element" that "marched among about 200 legitimate protesters... breaking windows, turning over boxes and clashing with police."

Gord Hill of the Kwakwaka'wakw First Nation agreed that a criminal element had infiltrated the protest.

"I'm glad you brought up the criminal element. The IOC and VANOC is the criminal element, pillaging public coffers, the effects of which we will see long after the Games," with cuts to health care, affordable housing, education and meaningful social services, he said.

"Gangs like the VPD, the RCMP, CSIS and CAF make up some of the 17,000 thugs in our streets."

Hill said he disagreed that police were reacting fairly to the damage done by protesters to buildings and buses in downtown Vancouver.

"Buildings are not made of flesh and tissue. They are made of concrete and steel." Hill said buildings were targeted because they belong to the corporations – The Hudson Bay, The Toronto-Dominion Bank – that do damage to flesh and blood humans.

Alissa Westergard-Thorpe of the ORN said compared to the violence to human beings sponsored by the state of Canada, the demonstration resulted in "minor property damage."

The march today was a "successful disruption of the messaging of the Olympics," according to Westergard-Thorpe.

She said the ORN is concerned police will use the property damage today as an excuse to disrupt the Women's Memorial March scheduled tomorrow. The March, in its 19th year, commemorates the 3,000 murdered and missing women in Canada since the 1970s, none of whose deaths and disappearances have been extensively investigated.