The Vancouver Police Department is encouraging witnesses to come forward after a man flashed a Nazi salute at Indigenous youth who were protesting at Clark and Hastings last week, blocking part of the intersection to traffic.
The youth were calling for the release of Indigenous elder Stacy Gallagher who was sentenced to 90 days in jail for violating an injunction that bars people from protesting at Trans Mountain sites in Burnaby.
In an email, Steve Addison from the VPD tells Vancouver Is Awesome that their Hate Crimes Unit is aware of the incident "due to media reports," and that "at this time the VPD has yet to receive a formal complaint."
They are now encouraging "anyone who witnessed this incident and is willing to participate in a police investigation to call our non-emergency line at 604-717-3321 so we can learn more about what happened."
A video clip of the racist act shows a man uttering profanities, flashing his middle finger out the window of his vehicle, then making three consecutive “Sieg Heil” motions - the gesture that the Nazis used at rallies in Germany.
Identified as a contractor from New Westminster, the man tells V.I.A. he is not a member of any white nationalist organization, but that "I lost my mind in the moment and did what I did in a knee-jerk, stupid way to express my frustration over the traffic tie up.”
He says he regrets what he did, but does not explain why his immediate instinct was to turn to overt racism.
Following the incident, the man is now on personal leave from his work for a company whose current client list includes Trans Mountain, the crown corporation working on the pipeline expansion in Burnaby.
Trans Mountain tells us that the company is indeed a contractor of theirs, but that the man "has not been on a... worksite for Trans Mountain."
