Vancouver Police made a surprise visit to the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA) on Thursday, showing up at 11 pm with a search warrant.
Although a group calling itself the Native Warriors Society has claimed responsibility for the theft of the Olympic flag from in front of City Hall three weeks ago, the VPD, responding to an "anonymous tip", thought they might find the flag in DERA's basement.
This was the first time DERA has been searched in its 34 year history.
Police spokesman Constable Tim Fanning has said the search was carried out at night to avoid the attention of protesters. Eight police officers apparently spent an hour searching the premises, took a few photos and left, sans flag.
Some activists have raised questions about why the raid took place under cover of darkness. Kim Kerr, the director of DERA, has called the raid a "political attack" against those campaigning for social housing in the lead-up to the 2010 Games.
The police claim they weren't targeting housing advocates. In a Vancouver Sun story, Constable Fanning is quoted as saying, "If we had been told that the flag was in a home in Shaughnessy we'd have gone there too."
The picture above is of a house in Shaughnessy, one of Vancouver's wealthier neighbourhoods. Do you really think police would show up there at 11 pm with the intention of searching their basement?
I met Kim Kerr in the fall and he told me, among other things, that DERA's basement contains a veritable archive of all legal actions that have taken place in the Downtown Eastside over the years.
The search indeed raises some eyebrows. Why did the VPD, already complaining of personnel shortages, send eight people to rifle through a basement for something they likely knew they wouldn't find there? What else might they have been looking for?
Perhaps someone should suggest to the VPD that the Olympic flag may have been gnome-napped. Any day now it might turn up in another photograph, held by different masked men in a far-flung place.
Photo courtesy of Squeaky Marmot.
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