Alex Reid

Apparently, I made the front page of the Metro (in Winnipeg) with my cop complaint from 2004.

From www.weeklies.ca :

LERA’s long and winding road
By James Turner, Staff Reporter

It could be a long road ahead for 24 cyclists who recently filed complaints with the Law Enforcement Review Agency (LERA) against 29 Winnipeg police officers, according to one Winnipegger currently enmeshed in the process.

LERA received the deluge of complaints as a result of police actions during the May 26 Critical Mass downtown cyclist rally.

These complaints come on top of seven complaints filed as a result of a May 3 cyclist protest against the Charging Bison military operation.

Critical Mass is a leaderless movement striving to raise the profile of cycling as a viable transportation alternative in major cities around the world.

But West Broadway resident Alex Reid, who filed a complaint with LERA against a member of the WPS in July 2004, says the local cyclists who have filed complaints may be in for more than they’ve bargained for.

To date he still has yet to see much movement on his case, which he says has left him frustrated.

It’s really misleading what LERA does says Reid.

He says his experience with the agency has left him with the impression that it is set up as little more than a bureaucratic obstacle that filters complaints into rigid categories to minimize the impact of those complaints.

Reid says his original complaint stemmed from an incident in which he was harassed and fined after making an off-hand comment while passing police.

As a result, he filed seven grievances against a single police officer and those grievances eventually boiled down by LERA into a single allegation of “rude or oppressive behaviour” demonstrated by the officer in question.

He says it took 10 months to simply hear back from LERA, and it wasn’t until January that he was advised his complaint had merit and would receive a hearing.

Reid says by this point, he holds little hope that his complaint will ever see any kind of satisfactory conclusion, and that the Critical Mass complainants will likely not fare much better.

“Good luck to them. It should be a long road,” says Reid. “Even if they do get to the top of the mountain, there’s nothing there.”

George Wright, LERA’s commissioner says that while he couldn’t comment on specific cases, the review agency addresses complaints at the speed that they get addressed and that all actions of the agency are governed by The Law Enforcement Review Act (TLERA).

David Sanders, a Winnipeg lawyer who is helping the Critical Mass cyclists submit their complaints to LERA (but is not representing them) called those filing complaints with the review agency brave, but couldn’t comment on how long he expected the process to take or whether he felt people would see the process through to the end.

He says at least the cyclists will be going into the process armed with what they say is video and photographic evidence of abuse of authority by police attempting to put an end to the protest ride.

“How long it takes, I don’t know,” says Sanders. “Each person has to make their own decisions. They felt strongly enough at least to pursue it this far.” Sanders says he’s very concerned about the potential for backlash or intimidation by police against the complainants.

I’ve heard reports of people being followed by police cars,” says Sanders, adding he’s looking for someone in a high-level position in the police to crack down on such behaviour.

“It could take some doing to get through to the troops,” he says.

The times are a’changing, and the Winnipeg police ought to get their act together. And the Mayor should note this as one of the reasons so many young people leave the city. Who wants to live in a city where simply being on a bicycle earns harassment?

We got our “World Class” skatepark in Winnipeg!

It was announced – officially – 13 months ago that the skatepark I lobbied for, would be built at the Forks. And it opened yesterday afternoon. I couldn’t make it due to work, but the word is that it was jampacked with more boards than space.

I think this is great for Winnipeg, and for the Forks especially. Six years ago, I was part of a group called ‘Forks for people, not profit’. At the time, the Forks was developing much of its vast empty land for commercial reasons (eg. Hotel, parking lot) and was planning on cementing the rest. I am a huge advocate of more recreational and greenspace in Winnipeg’s inner city – it’s 1/3 the national standard of greenspace to people. At that time, I felt that if the Forks was determined to cement the land, it might as well be for recreation. (When I refer to the Forks, I mean the managing board of the Forks)

Of course, that’s not why I started the skateboarding association or we choose the Forks as a prime candidate. But it was certainly a personal bias on the choice.

We chose the Forks from list of empty central locations. We chose the Forks because of several reasons. First, when we initiated the meeting with the Forks, the board was super pumped about the whole idea. At first they wanted the park in what they call an “industrial” area of the Forks which is the farthest away from anything important, next to the train bridge and the baseball park. I suppose later on, they realized, they should stick cars there instead.

The second reason was because it was downtown. To sell this to City Council, each City Councillor’s first priority (typically) is to judge the benefit and value to their respective ward. Besides, it only makes sense to place a ‘City’ asset like this relatively central. But politics is the only thing that matters at City Hall and as such, “downtown” is higher priority than many other things. The City Hall structure allows approval for downtown projects without need of the normal process (one of the things I learned working at City Hall). So, on September 2002, I got City Hall (via EPC) to officially agree to work with us on this project.

I never expected the city to put money into a skatepark, at a time when they could barely keep the swimming pools open. Sure this city is “conservative”, but it’s also grossly financially incompentent. Year after year, budgets barely break even.

The third reason was that we wanted the city to help cut the red tape, and to make facilities for skateboaders a priority as that was the one ’sport’ they were ignoring, even criminalizing. Also, from a legal standpoint, “liability” was a key obstacle.

The fourth reason was, to lobby anything to a Conservative City Council, you have to “sell” it. So we sold the idea for its commercial spinoffs. Skaters aren’t poor. They have money, and after skating it up, they need a drink or some eats. Wouldn’t the Forks be a nice spot? Sure it’s crass, but it works.

There was a lot of politics and surprising, many player haters. It’s funny though, when I read the papers and I see these same player haters who used to hate on us for trying to build the skatepark, now are not only praising it, but saying it was overdue. That’s funny.

There’s quite a few people to thank here. Many people at the Forks (like Paul Jordan) and JW Burns Family Foundation are primarily to thank for understanding not only the need for such a facility, but seemed as eager as I was to introduce some “play” into the area.

Murray, even though in the end he totally let us down, was a great supporter in the build up of lobbying for the skatepark. Bob Somers was also a great help in helping us hook up with Scatliff + Miller + Murray. There’s more people to thank.. but really, the most thanks go out to the many Winnipeggers who supported this.

WOOT!