Vancouver Police New Community Safety Personnel Program

BLOG POST posted on January 30, 2014 by indyvan

From the VPD Swine's Website:COMMUNITY SAFETY PROGRAM

"The Vancouver Police Community Safety Program is a three-year pilot project, running from 2013 to 2016. The Community Safety Unit is comprised of 42 special constables (20 full-time and 22 auxiliary members), one staff sergeant, two sergeants and one constable."

Community Safety members are distinct and separate from regular police members, and they are considered to be a unique element of the police department. The primary purpose of Community Safety personnel is to assist the Vancouver Police Department and enhance service delivery in the community by:

• assisting with lower-level, lower-risk tasks, as directed, to alleviate regular police officers from such tasks, thereby providing regular police officers with more capacity to serve the community and to maintain high visibility while patrolling neighbourhoods
• assisting the Vancouver Police Department at community and public events by providing a visible presence to the community, to promote safety and security, where the presence of a regular police officer is not required
• acting as a liaison between regular police officers and the community, as appropriate, to ensure the Vancouver Police Department continues to effectively serve citizens in Vancouver
• assisting police officers in order to maximize their available proactive policing time

HISTORY OF SPECIAL CONSTABLES

From Wikipedia:

"Special Constables were used extensively in Canada prior to the Second World War to quell labour unrest. After the war, industrial relations became far less militant and many of the larger urban police forces created permanent auxiliary units.

The most notorious use of Special Constables in Canadian history was during the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. The entire Winnipeg police force was dismissed because its members refused to sign an anti-union pledge and was replaced by a much larger and better paid force of untrained Special Constables explicitly to end the strike and the police union."

"In 1935 under Chief Constable W. W. Foster, the Vancouver Police Department was complemented with hundreds of special constables because of a waterfront strike led by communists, which culminated in the Battle of Ballantyne Pier, a riot that broke out when demonstrators attempted to march to the docks to confront strikebreakers. Also that year, nearly 2,000 unemployed men from the federal relief camps scattered throughout the province flocked to Vancouver to protest camp conditions."

The idea of "special constables" seams to be in relation to public unrest. In Ireland, they were created to counter the IRA (Irish Republic Army), or in Scotland where they are called to keep public order. With the addition of 40 of these special constables we could expect to see them show up and be friendly with protesters or like history has showed us to undermine and destroy workers struggles. 

"The role of Special Constables was redefined into its present incarnation during the First World War when a large force was recruited to both compensate for the loss of regular members who joined the war effort and to add an extra layer of protection during wartime. Special Constables were also an important component of the state’s response to the British police strikes in 1918 and 1919 and the UK General Strike of 1926."

This car and the two pigs with dumb looks on their faces is what you can expect to see around the city. Some of these cars do have a black battering ram on the front bumper. They follow a close resemblance to new VPD cruisers.

"Community Safety personnel assist regular patrol officers with various tasks, including picking up statements, outside perimeter security at police incidents, and assisting with the transportation and tagging of property. In addition, they will be available to provide logistical support during large-scale deployments, major events, emergencies or disasters. The Community Safety members are available city-wide and work an 11-hour dayshift and 11-hour nightshift for maximum coverage."

This tactic of nice, friendly policing is only a front to gain information and evidence to pursue charges and put more people in cages to protect capitalists. The Community Police's car closely resembles the new VPD cruisers hitting the streets to give the illusion that there is more armed police on the streets.

Watching their Youtube videos they repeatedly say how they want to be regular cops and be noticed. This attitude gives the sense they will do whatever it takes to make themselves noticed by the higher ups. It does not matter if the cops are armed or not, they are all working toward a sterilized cookie cutter society where poor and working class people are criminalized and shunned aside to make room for condos and high end boutiques. The CSP's are just another tool of repression and harassment the state will use to silence and repress any form of revolt from the streets to the workplace.