Prime Time Crime

By Bob Cooper

Those who’ve dedicated their lives to the war for social justice require injustice.  It’s their lifeblood and no injustice, slight, or ‘microaggression’ is too small these days.  Reminds me of a legal definition we used to have to memorize that went ‘…to even the slightest degree, notwithstanding that….’  Injustice doesn’t take a holiday mister.  There is no ‘peacetime’ or a Weekend Pass for SJWs. 

The hustlers of the Left’s race-baiting industry are at it again armed this time with a fresh batch of statistics they claim shows indisputable evidence of bias on the part of the Vancouver Police in conducting street checks.    Blacks, Indigenous over represented in Vancouver police stops 

The gist of their claim is that Indigenous people make up 2% of the general population but account for 15% of VPD street checks.  Blacks fare a little better, making up 1% of the population but 4% of the street checks.  Asians, by far the largest minority group in the city, aren’t mentioned by the BC Civil Liberties Association or the BC Union of Indian Chiefs.  Presumably their stats don’t fit the narrative so Asian victims of injustice are left to their own devices.

What the public isn’t being told is that there are any number of legitimate reasons for this variance.  For instance, while Indigenous people may make up 2% of the general population they make up a much larger percentage of the population of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side which is the most crime-ridden sector in the city.  Another is repetition.  That is to say that one active Indigenous criminal may be checked 4 or 5 times in a single shift by different officers who each submit a card which could easily skew such a small sample.  Ditto Blacks whose sample is even smaller.

The BCCLA’s Josh Paterson claims that “Indigenous and Black people are shockingly over-represented in police stops in Vancouver”.  Let him spend a week on the streets of the Downtown East Side and he wouldn’t be so shocked. Their other standard ‘disparity’ claim is that Indigenous people are ‘overrepresented’ in prison providing, ipso facto, proof of systemic racism.  Statistically they are overrepresented yes.  But the real reason which is never discussed in polite company, is that when it comes to violent crime, as a group they punch well above their weight.  I worked in the Downtown East Side in the 70s and 80s and saw it first-hand but don’t take my word.  Ask any cop in any major city or rural reserve and they’ll tell you the same thing.  And most of the time their victims are other Indigenous people.

But when it comes to strategy and crafting of message, the Left are nothing if not cunning and creative in stacking the deck.  Anticipating howls of outrage I went looking for statistics on violent crime broken down by race of suspects and guess what?   Police routinely suppress racial data in Canada, study says

That’s right.  I went to the Statistics Store & was told ‘We haven’t carried those in years, son’.  Fearing the wrath of the race industry most agencies won’t keep them any more.  Stats that ‘prove’ injustice or racism are approved while those that don’t are deemed ‘unhelpful’ and strictly ‘verboten’.  SJWs get to have their cake and eat it too.

The response by Chief Constable Adam Palmer was spot on and took some real courage in this day and age while that of the soon-to-be ex-Mayor brought to mind a certain comic whose sponsors are currently dropping her like a case of Ebola.  I’d describe him as ‘feckless’ and since I was raised as a gentleman and have a lot of female readers, we’ll just leave it at that.

Bob Cooper is a retired Vancouver policeman.  He walked a beat in Chinatown and later worked in the Asian Organized Crime Section and the Homicide Squad.

PREVIOUS:   Disrespectful and Hurtful