David Eby folded his extraordinarily long legs under a small table and took a sip of coffee.
"The Paul Boyd story is going to disappear like so many other stories and that's outrageous," the executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association said.
To keep the media spotlight on the death of a bipolar man more than two years ago, Eby is making sure the topic comes up in conversation. Paul Boyd was shot nine times by a Vancouver police officer and some witnesses say the last four bullets were fired after Boyd was fully disarmed. The involved officer claims the nine bullets were fired into Boyd in self-defense. A coroner's inquest takes place in nine months.
"The lawyer for the coroner is mandated to get the story out, but in practice for that lawyer doing so is a challenge due to a lack of resources. There’s only one lawyer right now doing these cases. That could easily result in the role becoming more procedural, or managerial and not exposing, like they have, injustices like the Bush death or the St. Arnaud death. The other lawyers at an inquest represent the city, which is liable if the officer screwed up, and the police officer involved. Without a lawyer for the family who has the time to go through these boxes of documents in detail, and who has the agenda to push for a full day of cross examination of, for example, the shooting officer, I’m worried the interest in this case and others is going to die out and we won’t see any accountability for that officer emptying his clip into Boyd," said Eby.
Recently included in Vancouver Magazine's "Most Powerful People in Vancouver," Eby remains disarmingly humble and available to talk about anything related to civil liberties in the city. Vancouver Magazine writes this about Number 48:
In an hour-long (and then some) conversation focused on getting inside Eby's clever and media-savvy mind, the prominent issues he spoke about included homelessness, censorship, and the purchase of state-of-the-art weaponry.
In past 30 days...
1. The Vancouver Police Department announced that they hadn't bought a military sonar weapon for anything other than making public service announcements.
2. The Vancouver Public Library tried to deny a meeting room to a group focused on informing the public about the most efficient and painless ways to commit suicide.
3. The Olympic torch arrived in Victoria "to a subdued reception" in Eby's view, and the BCCLA's trained brigade of Olympic Observers monitored the police response to protests.
4. The Paul Boyd decision came down, more than two years after the man was gunned down in the street.
In short, it's been a busy month for David Eby and he had this to say…
On training Olympic Observers and the occasional undercover cop:
"There are undercover police officers; there are always a few. It's invariable that after a talk I give on the Olympics, someone will come up and ask me what the plans are for the protests, where they'll take place, who are the leaders.
They're not very covert about it and it makes you wonder why they're not very covert about it. It's so heavy-handed and awkward to both of us. I tend to respond by saying the police have a role to play in de-escalating conflict and ensuring the peace and it's so much in the police's hands, which tends to wrap up the conversation. They're generally white males between 28 and 40, stocky, short hair.
We're trying to teach our observers to focus on behaviours. What is it the police officer is doing that makes you think the police officer is angry rather than saying the police officer is angry at the protester.”
On not trusting the Vancouver Police Department's announcements around the Olympics:
"We don't trust anything that's coming out of the police press conferences, the damage control that's being attempted by VANOC or the police or City Hall. We're looking to actions now. What are you doing? That's far more telling. What the police are doing is buying new and untested hardware to use on crowds.”
On lasers, sonar and other tactics for crowd control:
Why would they introduce the LRAD?
“The VPD sound gun is about 24 inches in circumference. They said they bought it as a public announcement system. It focuses sound in a tube at a directed target. It is designed to focus noise at a ship that is coming towards you. It is not designed to spread an announcement out over a dispersed crowd, just the opposite.
It's bizarre. It's like we bought a laser to provide light in our living room.
You don't buy a laser to light up a room. Similarly, you don't buy the equivalent of a sound laser to talk to a crowd. You buy an actual public announcement system. You'd have to rotate the LRAD like a spotlight around a crowd. There's some great footage online that shows how directional it is.
It's the only sound system you can buy that has a weapon component to it and because of that it's about $10,000 more expensive than a regular public announcement system, and that cheaper system would do a better job of making public announcements.”
Editor's Note: The blogosphere has been full of comments about the VDP's purchase of the LRAD.
Blogger Squat The Planet had this to say about the LRAD:
I'm sure if you ever wanted to piss off a large group of people and agitate them to action, this must be the way. They say they just want to use it as a PA system, but we all know the cops have a tendency to abuse things like this. I'm sure there are some now deaf puppies running around very disoriented in the Lower East side of Vancouver as i type this.
Blogger Magme disagreed:
On collateral damage:
"You could argue at least the LRAD won't kill people, but in my mind we should have a higher standard than that."
How are the officers being trained? Are they receiving the weapon training or just the public address training? That issue has not been addressed - the training angle, the cost of the training.
Personally, I find it very upsetting that City Council is looking at cutting so many programs in a budget deficit year and the police are spending money on this hardware and training for a device that has a two week application, maybe.”
On unilateral decision-making:
"I think the more important issue is that the VPD seems limited only by their budget in what weapons they can buy. And it's an important question because this was how the Taser was introduced. You don't bring in a weapon and use it and have a discussion afterwards about safety and policing and efficacy. You do that before you buy the weapon. Especially when it's a $17,000 weapon with unknown training costs.
I got an email from the mayor's office that the police saw the purchase of the LRAD as an operational decision. As a result, the decision did not go to the Police Board or to City Council and the reports in the media were likely the first they [the mayor's office] heard of it.
I think that's very problematic. Apparently, the police in Vancouver can buy military-grade hardware untested in Canada for use on members of the public without taking it to any of the democratic institutions that regulate the police forces conduct.”
How did Eby find out about the LRAD?
“We were training the police on legal observing and we got into a free-flowing conversation at the end of it and they said, 'Do you have any questions?' I said, 'I've seen this LRAD in Pittsburg at the G20' and I asked if they had it. The VPD representative said, 'Yeah, yeah we've got one.' He said, 'How did they use it in Pittsburgh?' I said they used it to disperse the crowd. And he said, 'No. We would only use it as a public address system, to make sure nobody could say they didn’t hear our announcements.'
On accountability:
"I'm sure there was some political embarrassment for City Council that they didn't know about the LRAD, that buying military hardware for the police force was not brought forward to the mayor's office or Police Board. So I'm hopeful that now there may be some political will in knowing what the police have planned for 2010, so that City Hall isn’t caught off guard again."