African-descent advisory group feels lied to about police return to Vancouver schools
VANCOUVER – Members of the African Descent Advisory Committee for the Vancouver Police Department say they feel they have been lied to about the process of reinstating a program that deploys armed officers in public schools.
Parker Johnson said he and the other committee members had decided “unanimously and unconditionally” that they did not want police to return to schools this fall, and were surprised to learn on Thursday that a decision had already been made.
Johnson was among those who walked out of a meeting of the Vancouver Police Board where board member Rachel Roy resigned over the handling of the reintroduction of the controversial program that had been scrapped in 2021 by the previous school board.
Newly elected school boards voted five to four last November to bring back a “reimagined” program, while the police board voted to approve the department’s budget, which included an allocation for the school liaison officer program.
Video from the previous police council meeting in April shows Vice-President Faye Wightman agreeing with Roy that the council has not yet agreed to reintroduce school liaison officers and that there will be further discussion.
Wightman, however, corrected her previous comments on Thursday, saying she had made a mistake in suggesting that the program should be voted on in June because the board had already voted when it approved the budget last November.
Johnson said the advisory committee considers the situation a “fiasco”.
“You’ve wasted our time asking us to come to a meeting, which you’ve already decided on, so it seems like a bold lie,” he said before leaving the room.
Mayor Ken Sim, chairman of the police board, told Johnson he had not lost his vote and that there are opportunities to comment.
Sim’s ABC Vancouver party, which has a majority on both the school board and city council, campaigned for a pledge to return officers to schools.
Sadie Kuehn, co-chair of the African Descent Advisory Committee, told the board it was “offensive” to allow committee members to give up their time, energy and expertise when a “judgment” had already been made on the program.
Roy said on Thursday the board had “stifle” debate on the program.
“You lied to the African Descent Advisory Committee. I feel lied to,” she told board members before announcing she would resign after the meeting.
“We didn’t vote on this as a policy issue,” she said.
“We haven’t thought about what we would do as a board if our advisory committee said: ‘No, this is not the way to tackle structural racism.'”
Speaking to the media after the meeting, Wightman agreed that the police board could have rejected the program’s return, but said it was effectively approved with the budget.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 16, 2023.
