Day of Action for Ashley Machiskinic - three arrested

DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE  - A vigil was held in the alley behind the Regent Hotel for Ashley Machiskinic, the 22-year-old Indigenous woman found  murdered in the alley on Sept. 15. It is widely believed she was thrown from a fifth-floor window.

The vigil was followed by a rally outside the Vancouver Police building on Main Street demanding the police investigate the case. Several women who attempted to present a letter demanding action on murdered and missing women to the VPD were locked in the police station and threatened with arrest. The seven women chose to stay inside until their demands were heard. Five eventually left and the three who chose not to leave were charged with "assault by trespass."

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women issued last year states that the “hundreds of cases involving aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in the past two decades have neither been fully investigated nor attracted priority attention.”

Click here to watch a VMC video shot from inside the police station.