Salt Spring woman lodges complaint over alleged mistreatment at the hands of VPD

A Salt Spring woman has filed a complaint with B.C.’s Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC) claiming an abuse of authority by the Vancouver Police Department (VPD).

Olive Allen claims she was was waiting to get into a concert outside the PNE Forum on Saturday, where she claims she was wrongly arrested by officers and then denied her rights.

“I am disgusted, I have no trust in cops, and I fear them,” Allen said of the experience.

The 26-year-old said the incident happened as she was going through security at the venue. Everything was going fine until security told her to step away from her bag and called police over.

Inside her bag was a pouch of tobacco and “the most minuscule amount of marijuana,” Allen said.

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But that’s not what Allen claims she was arrested for.

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Instead, she claims seven officers surrounded her and arrested her for disturbing the peace, though she denies raising her voice or any physical altercation.

“I asked them if they could elaborate on what that means because I don’t know what that means, and the only thing they kept saying was ‘disruption of peace, disruption of peace.'”

Allen said she was put in handcuffs and taken to jail, where she was put in a cell and had her jacket and shoes taken. She claims police did not read her her rights.

That’s when she claims the actions of the police escalated.

Allen claims officers denied her water, a bathroom and access to a lawyer.

“Cops were laughing, I heard them say ‘shut the f*** up.’ I asked for a lawyer, and one of the female cops that was on me, she came up to the window and she laughed in my face and asked me if I could afford one,” she said.

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“I had to beg them and scream for water. I told them I had to go to the washroom, and one of the guys said I could wait. I had to pee on the floor because I couldn’t hold my pee anymore.”

Allen claims that after about six hours, and removing her clothes in protest, she was given water. She says she was eventually let out at 4 a.m., without being told where in Vancouver she was.

Sgt. Jason Robillard with the VPD said the department is aware of the complaint to the OPCC.

“They hold the complaint and they have what’s called an admissibility process, so that process is underway right now, and they determine if there is anything credible to warrant an investigation.”

Robillard said the VPD can not comment on the case, but that if the OPCC orders an investigation it could take up to six months to complete.