John Richardson taking affidavits for the original report, To Serve and Protect, published in 2002.

Pivot Legal Society focuses its energy on strategic legal action in four main areas:

Policing achievements:

The Vancouver Police department (VPD) has changed its breach arrest policy, property seizure policy, notebook policy and other policies as a result of Pivot’s compound police complaint, filed in 2003 [see report To Serve and Protect].

"Breach" policy

Some of the most significant changes are to the VPD "breach" policy, which governs the practice of arresting and removing people to other locations without charges.

The new policy corrects specifically several errors in existing practices, setting out, for example, that "Vehement emotional verbal expression of disagreement with police does not constitute a breach of the peace."

It also forbids transporting people to isolated locations or other municipalities, and requires officers to comply with their "duty of care" by considering vulnerabilities, such as suitability of clothing and mental state, before "breaching" people.

Seizure of property and keeping of police notebooks

Two other changes to VPD policies touch on seizure of property and keeping of police notebooks.

The RCMP, in their investigation of the Pivot complaints, found that VPD officers were not documenting property seized correctly and also found the quality of notebook records kept by VPD officers were substandard.

The new policies set strict guidelines governing police documentation of property seized and interactions with the public.

As a result of the 50 complaints, in 2005 the Solicitor General ordered an audit of the Police Complaints Process in B.C.

[ go to the Policing page for more about this issue ]

Addiction achievements:

Health centre

In 2003, Pivot intervened in the Supreme Court on behalf of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) to successfully defend a health centre for drug-addicted persons under challenge by a local merchant's association.

Continued...

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