FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) territories / Vancouver, BC – Lawyers with Pivot Legal Society and the BC Civil Liberties Association have filed three complaints against the Vancouver Police Department’s excessive use of force, targeting, and surveillance of Palestine protests.
Today, Pivot Legal Society (Pivot) and the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) filed multiple complaints, under BC’s Police Act, against the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) for excessive use of force and the targeting and surveillance of people expressing support for Palestinian human rights.
The Complaints:
- Service and Policy Complaint to the Police Board flowing from the VPD’s excessive use of force against Pro-Palestine demonstrators on May 31, 2024, at CN Rails. Extensive forms of policing violence were inflicted, including deploying military grade pepper spray; standing on the backs of cuffed citizens and placing knees on necks (in contravention of VPD’s own policy on restraints); and strangling and choking a person to the point of them requiring medical attention.
- Service and Policy Complaint to the Police Board concerning VPD Surveillance of Palestine Solidarity Demonstrators, including illegal use of Remotely Piloted Aerial Systems (drones) and unauthorized filming by VPD officers.
- Complaint to the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner regarding a specific VPD constable, VPD Constable Dimitri Sheinerman badge #3390, who has policed Palestine solidarity actions while wearing a pro-Israel symbol. (OPCC response and subsequent BCCLA response.)
Sukhi Gill, local protestor, says:
Officer Sheinerman exemplifies the mistreatment of pro-Palestine demonstrators by the VPD. In February Sheinerman was caught wearing a patch with an Israeli flag and a Punisher skull; the skull is a known symbol worn by many white nationalists. The VPD continued to place Sheinerman at countless pro-Palestine protests, including on May 31, 2024, where he put a peaceful demonstrator into a headlock and dropped their head onto the concrete with his full force. The extreme violence he committed against us demonstrators was predictable, and his presence was no mistake. We demand that Sheinerman is dismissed from the VPD.
Background Information
The complaints were precipitated by VPD’s violent dispersal of nearly 100 community members gathered in a political rail blockade in East Vancouver on May 31, 2024. The multi-racial and intergenerational gathering laid over 300 children’s outfits along the CN Rail track – commemorating the over 15,000 children killed in Gaza. The VPD responded by brutalizing dozens of community members, resulting in 14 arrests. The policing violence that day has been resoundingly criticized, including by Union of BC Indian Chiefs, Parents for Palestine, West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund, Worker Solidarity Network, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, and World Beyond War.
Meghan McDermott, Policy Director at the BCCLA, says:
Our complaints are centered around disturbing police practices that appear to be systemic in nature. We are calling on the Vancouver Police Board to impartially investigate the department’s biased policing of people advocating for Palestinian human rights in Vancouver, and to hold the Police Department accountable to the public for these systemic rights violations. We expect the civilian oversight body to swiftly use its powers to protect people in Vancouver from being further harmed by the undemocratic practices forming the bases of our complaints.
The VPD’s policing, excessive force, and surveillance are tactics for quelling political dissent and expression related to Palestinian people’s rights. It reflects what many legal scholars have criticized as the “Palestine exception to Free Speech,” which is both a form of systemic anti-Palestinian racism and an egregious pattern of state-sanctioned repression of Palestine liberation movements, and people exercising constitutionally-protected rights to free speech, expression and assembly.
Dania Barakat, a local Palestinian organizer, says:
We are witnessing the most documented genocide in history, a brutal ethnic cleaning campaign against Palestinians in Gaza. As we watch barefoot civilians dig through rubble to uncover the voices calling out from beneath, we too are called to respond to these voices who call out for justice. The VPD repression and surveillance of our protests and actions will not stop us. Until the siege on Gaza is lifted, until all of Palestine is liberated, from the river to the sea, our struggle continues.
The pro-Palestine movement has grown in response to over 76 years of occupation by the Israeli state against Indigenous Palestinian people and to the current genocide, as condemned by international legal bodies, like the International Court of Justice. Since October 7, 2023 over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than 94,000 have been injured, and more than 10,000 are missing from Gaza alone. Within this context VPD has allowed anti-Palestinian racism to persist within its ranks, deliberately overpoliced pro-Palestinian activists and infringed on Charter-protected free expression rights. We condemn the VPD.
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