Greetings;
I am exhausted but happier than I have ever been. The police took just about everything we had---tents, sleeping bags, food, winter jackets, blankets. Leaving me and most of the other campers with only the clothes on our backs. All this after we had quite willingly agreed with Ken Kelly, head of the Downtown Victoria Business association, to leave Centennial square by noon today (Friday, November 28th) so that he could host a Christmas tree lighting ceremony for the public.
The City insisted that this wasn't good enough--and sent in a host of bylaw enforcement officers and police men to make sure we were out of there by 9a.m. On the authority of the city's "bylaw enforcement policy" restricting tents to the hours between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., the bylaw officers issued several $100 tickets for "constructing a temporary structure without a permit." They then arrested David Arthur Johnston and Tavis Dodds, on the charge of "continuing to disobey a bylaw." They didn't seem to want to arrest me or anyone else who, like Johnston and Dodds, maintained that the officers had no authority to enforce the 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. policy. They did give me a $100 ticket for the lit candle I had in front of me during the whole proceedings.
Just when we thought it was over, we heard a scuffle a few hundred feet way, under an awning where one of us stood watch over tents, tarps, sleeping bags, food, and other effects we had packed up earlier--before the police even arrived. The police were loading all the goods into a truck, and wouldn't let us have anything back. Scott, who had been watching the pile when the police came over, reported having told them, when asked "are these yours"--"no, I don't believe anything belongs to anyone, but I am taking care of these things. And they are more mine than yours." Mine or yours or theirs, our stuff was, yet again, carted off to the abyss of the Police Department. Never to be seen again, most likely. People without a fixed address rarely get anything back from the police.
So we were back to nothing again. No big deal, really. For some reason we were all deliriously happy, maybe because we knew that the police and the City can't take away anything real---they can steal our stuff, imprison our friends, neglect the rule of law. No big deal. They can't take THAT away. Someone from the media asked me if I was worried about my friends in jail. I answered---"Well, when your friends are in the hands of people who show little respect for the law, it's natural to worry. But what are they going to do? What's the worst? Torture my friends and make me watch, then kill them, then torture me, then kill me? Well, fine. Because even then you can't take anything away." Pain comes and goes. Love is forever. Life outlives the prisons and the grave. Or as a young man who was released from police cells early this morning and came by the camp for a rest said--"When you are free in here--" he gestured at his heart--"then you can be free, even in there[in jail]."
The City of Victoria does not seem to be honoring the law in this case, to say the least--and this instance is just a sign of a broad pattern of lawlessness on the part of the City of Victoria. And the victims of the City's lawlessness are most often those least able to defend themselves. Our City government is not benevolent, even though there are some well-meaning individuals who work with the city in various capacities, and well-meaning citizens who would like to believe the City acts in the best interests of the people. And the police are on the whole a gang of publicly-sanctioned bullies who intimidate the most vulnerable of our citizens into compliance. That said, there are a few individual police officers who sincerely strive to protect the people, and I feel sorry for those commendable officers that they have to carry out the city's illegal policies.
So, on the authority of a most likely illegal bylaw, the city held two people in jail today. Happens every day to many homeless individuals, only it doesn't usually make the evening news. Every day this week people came into the camp in Centennial square sharing stories of how the police stole all their stuff, beat them up, drove them out of city limits, or a combination of the three. I had no idea it was as bad as it is.
Well--this afternoon Dodds and Johnston were released from custody, and given a speedy trial---unlike many people with No Fixed Address, they have a strong support net work, the back-up of two ninja-goddess lawyers who work for free (Irene and Cathy) and much public visibility. The Justice System still works badly for them, but it works better for them than it does for most people living on the street.
Johnston and Dodds will appear in court on Friday, December 5th for a trial which will begin the process of determining in the court whether the city has any legal authority in enforcing a ban on tenting between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., in light of madam Justice Ross's recent Supreme Court ruling. This is really good news.
I was going to set up camp in Centennial square again tonight. I changed my mind. When I returned to Centennial square with David Johnston and Tavis Dodds around 5 p.m., our friends who had been waiting there while I was at the Courthouse were gone and so was their stuff. The square was full of people celebrating the opening of the Christmas shopping season, courtesy of the Downtown Victoria Business Association. Christmas Carols played on loudspeakers. The space under the tree that had served as our home for four days was empty. No room in the inn and even the manger is off limits."It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."
We eventually ran into Jonathan LeDrew, who told us the bylaw officers had been by again, and had threatened to issue more tickets and make more arrests if Jonathan and two others didn't leave the little patch of pavement where they and their few remaining belongings were huddled--quite out of the way of the official celebrations.
The four of us--LeDrew, Johnston, Dodds, and myself---hadn't been there five minutes when a kind woman came by with a bag full of sandwiches for us--she had seen us on the news and was inspired to help. Hot on her trail was a security guard working fro the City, who threatened to call bylaw enforcement if we didn't all move along. Apparently, it is illegal to give gifts on public property in the City of Victoria. Merry Christmas, hey? But a little later another security guard came by, shook my hand, and gave me a tiny music box. Yes, Merry Christmas.
With one security guard's warning and another's sweet gift, we moved along, each, eventually, in their own direction. The community that had been building a home together was, yet again, divided by the City and its laws. What the City and its laws don't know is that no amount of apparent division can ever divide us. We are a community bonded by love and by life and, no, you can't take that away, even if you do everything in your power to drive us apart. "We aren't protesters," Jonathan said, "We are lovers." "We aren't here to promote anything," G. said, "We promote living. Living. Period." "They want to stamp out everything living," Scott said, "but you can't stamp out anything living--just because you have a gun doesn't mean you get to tell life what to do." Life, it seems, just keeps doing its beautiful life-thing, quite oblivious to this silly world of guns and money.
Well, speaking of guns, I hadn't taken twenty steps before I ran into constable Jamie Pierce, one of the policemen who was most keen to see us removed from Centennial square. I had just seen him at the Courthouse, where he told me "well, you had your little time,"--waving his hands in the air and wiggling his fingers--"and now it's over." Then he added--- "And you should tell your friends in Centennial square that we are going there next to see them." Greeting me, as promised, in Centennial square, he said "So what are you doing here, Kristen?" I said, "I'm celebrating the Christmas season with my neighbours, just like you, Jamie."
Pierce and I parted company and I saw him going over to where a very tired Jonathan LeDrew sat on a rolled up blanket with a guitar given to him earlier in the day by a man who also had no fixed address, but wanted to give his guitar "to the future Tent City." I caught up to Pierce in time to see him asking Jonathan to move along if he didn't want his stuff seized again.
I left Centennial square shortly thereafter, but not before running into a man who gave me his tent and blanket. He and his girlfriend were sleeping in a doorway, he said, and so they wouldn't need their tent for awhile.
So I'm not staying in Centennial square tonight. There is a time to strive and a time to surrender, a time to push and a time to yield. I'm tired and tonight I won't be sleeping in the public eye. The city and the police department can rest easy, even if no one else can.
We will see what tomorrow brings.
Words can't say "thank you" well enough to all the human angels who supported us in various ways in centennial square this week. For all the gifts, in all their forms, and to all of you---thank you. Your collective presence stuns me with its beauty. This is what a community built on love looks like. I had no idea. It feels like we are on the verge of a miracle. That we got this far is miracle enough for one night. Thank you.
in peace and with much joy,
Kristen Woodruff.
