VANCOUVER (CP) _ An anti-poverty protester who threatened to
evict members of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games organizing
committee from their homes and offices has been arrested.
Vancouver Police Department spokesman Tim Fanning says Saturday's
arrest of David Cunningham was made so he could be issued a peace
bond to stay away from members of the organizing committee.
Last week, Cunningham spoke about individual VANOC members during
a protest outside the organizing committee's building while a board
meeting took place inside.
``We have found where their offices are, we have found where
their homes are. We're going to go and we're going to evict them
from their offices like they've evicted hundreds of our brothers and
sisters,'' he said at the protest.
Cunningham has been ordered not to have contact with VANOC board
members and to stay away from VANOC offices and events.
Kim Kerr of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association says
Cunningham was called by someone posing as a reporter frmo the free
Vancouver daily newspaper 24 Houtrs asking for an interview.
Fanning confirmed that.
He said it was done so that Cunningham would be by himself in a
public space so that neither he nor the officers would be injured as
he was taken into custody. He was held for five hours.
''Because of his nature and the fact he's always giving media
interviews they felt that would certainly get him to a spot where
they would be able to arrest him safely,'' Fanning said.
24 Hours editor Dean Broughton told CKWX Radio it was
unacceptable for a police investigator to pose as a news reporter to
arrest Cunningham.
He said the police move affects their credibility and ability to
do their job.
Fanning says Cunningham initially did not wish to agree to the
peace bond but eventually did so after speaking with his lawyer.
In the protest Wednesday, a bus load of protesters headed by
Cunningham were met by police outside the VANOC building.
Cunningham said demonstrators eventually chose to leave rather
than play games with police.
``What we do plan on doing is 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,'' Cunningham said.
He said protesters hold Olympic organizers personally responsible
for people who have been pushed out of their homes in the tough
inner-city neighbourhood.
Critics have said hundreds of people have been left homeless as
single-room occupancy hotels have been closed. The so-called SROs
are the lowest rung on the housing ladder, providing cheap though
squalid housing for people in the tough neighbourhood.
