A story that kind of got buried in the breaking news of a city sanitation manager gunned down last week outside his house in Burnaby was the tale about Vancouver police Staff Sgt. Mark Horsley and his undercover operation in the Downtown Eastside.
I never made it to the press conference.
But I later watched the livestream and, like many, was surprised to learn it wasn’t another story about a bust and people going to jail. Instead, Horsley, who posed as a disabled man with a brain injury in a wheelchair, talked of the compassion of many neighbourhood residents, who could have easily ripped off the money hanging out of his fanny pack or assaulted him.
He had an iPad and a camera on him, too.
The purpose of Horsley’s deployment was to catch a violent criminal or two who were preying on people in wheelchairs. Since January 2014, police investigated 28 cases where criminals robbed, assaulted and, in one case, sexually assaulted people in wheelchairs. About 60 per cent of the crimes occurred in the Downtown Eastside.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” Horsley told reporters. “My boss tied a porkchop around my neck, threw me in to a shark tank.”
But after 300 interactions with people, including known criminals, a shark never attacked. Instead, Horsley was given money, food and had someone pray for him. In the end, it was – as they say in the media and police business – a good news story.
Inspiring, is the term Horsley used.
Two other stories came to mind when I heard about Horsley’s operation -- and they didn’t exactly involve Downtown Eastside residents of the compassionate kind.
The first one goes back to 2005 when then-Const. Al Arsenault, in heavy makeup, posed as an injured old man with a mental illness in the Downtown Eastside. It took less than 45 minutes to be robbed on both nights he pretended to be asleep in alley alcoves. Thieves used knives, razor blades and scissors to cut Arsenault’s bag from around his neck.
“One guy was so close to me, I could smell the crack [cocaine] on his breath,” he told me back then. “I was thinking, ‘What if the guy decides to slit my throat?’ My heart was pumping pretty fast.”
Five men and one woman, all in their 20s, were charged with robbery.
The other story was this one: Back in March 2003, I posed as Horsley’s “half-brother” as he and I strolled East Hastings in an attempt to buy crack cocaine. We were, of course, dressed a little differently than our normal attire, as were other members of a VPD drug squad.
That night, Horsley and his crew did “buy-and-busts,” rounding up drug dealers who sold to undercover cops, including one who sold in front of a marked police car. It was a surreal experience and gave me a ground-level look at the intricate drug network that exists in the Downtown Eastside.
It still exists.
So do compassionate people.
Both stories, it seems, will continue to be told for years to come.
Some, unfortunately, more than others.
@Howellings
