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Vancouver — Vancouver police acted inappropriately by impersonating a reporter from the newspaper 24 Hours in order to arrest anti-Olympics protester David Cunningham, says the editor-in-chief of the free daily commuter paper.
“We find it unacceptable,” Dean Broughton said Sunday in an interview. “It's inappropriate to use any media in any investigation.”
The news media have a special role in society – to deliver credible news, he said. Impersonating a reporter attacks the credibility of the industry, he said.
“It affects our ability to do our job,” Mr. Broughton said, adding that the newspaper may ask the Police Complaints Commission to look into the incident.
David Cunningham, of the Anti-Poverty Committee, uses a megaphone as he announces his group will be targeting each and every individual on the VANOC board and holding them individually responsible for what they have done to the hundreds of people on the Downtown Eastside during a demontration outside VANOC headquarters in Vancouver on May 16. (Chuck Stoody/Canadian Press)
Vancouver Police Department Constable Tim Fanning confirmed Sunday that a police officer lured Mr. Cunningham to a public mall on Saturday afternoon by posing as a 24 Hours reporter.
“It was a ruse to get him out in the open to facilitate a peaceful arrest. That was all there was to it,” he said at a news conference at police headquarters.
But after explaining the reasoning for the impersonation, Constable Fanning backed away from endorsing the tactic.
“If they had asked me before they did it – because I'm up here suffering slings and arrows – I'd say, don't. Find another way,” he told reporters.
Constable Fanning said he spoke to several officers about the ploy. “This is something I have never heard us doing in the past. I have heard of all sorts of other ploys, but never using this one. It may never be used again,” he said.
“It's just because of Mr. Cunningham's background [that police used this ploy]. There was no other way of getting him out, so that's what they used,” Constable Fanning said.
Mr. Cunningham, a member of the Anti-Poverty Committee, was arrested after threat last week to bring protests over social housing to the offices and homes of members of the 2010 Olympic Games organizing committee. The anti-poverty group has been increasingly vocal in recent weeks over concerns about the impact of the Games on social housing.
Constable Fanning said a police officer had called Mr. Cunningham Saturday and said he was a member of the news media. They made arrangements to meet for an interview. The arresting team's supervisors became aware of what happened after it occurred, he said.
Police felt the impersonation of a reporter was reasonable. Mr. Cunningham is considered to be confrontational and police have had violent clashes with him in the past, Constable Fanning said. The officers “felt that impersonating a reporter was the best tactic to use and that's what was done,” he said. The arrest occurred without incident, he added.
Mr. Cunningham was released from police custody about five hours later after signing an agreement with conditions to keep the peace. He could be charged criminally if he violates the peace bond. On Friday, a court is to hear his challenge of the bond's conditions, which require that he have no contact with Olympic committee board members or executive team members or go within one block of their businesses or homes.
Mr. Cunningham, 28, said in an interview the ploy used by police to arrest him shows that police “will resort to anything to undermine the effectiveness of the anti-poverty committee, including outright lies.”
He has been arrested about 10 times for acts of “non-violent disobedience,” he said. He anticipated his arrest would have no effect on the anti-Olympics protest.
The anti-poverty committee runs co-operatively, without designated leaders, he said. “They're trying their darndest to isolate myself as leader. They think they can neutralize the work of the anti-poverty committee by taking me out, which fortunately is not the case.”
Anna Hunter, another member of the anti-poverty committee, said in an interview the threat to take the protest to the homes and offices of Olympic committee members has been made by numerous other people in the group. “David is outspoken and articulate. But he was, no way, the only one who made that threat. I made it as well as numerous other people,” she said.
