By Mike Archer. An online petition has been started to try to convince the Abbotsford Police Department, City Council, the City of Abbotsford and the authorities who have participated in or turned a blind eye to the horrible injustices , civil rights abuses and criminal harassment meted out on the homeless, the mentally ill, the financially challenged, the poor and those who suffer from alcohol and drug addiction in Abbotsford.
Photo by Bas Stevens
Enough is enough.
Do we have to call in the United Nations just to get basic human dignity respected in the community which calls itself a Christian City of Character?
Shame on the APD. Shame on Mayor Banman. Shame on John Smith, Bruce Beck, Bob Bos and all those who have, under the guise of leadership been responsible for a humanitarian crisis that would shame even a third world country.
Look at yourselves.
Chicken feces as a means of social control? The Salvation Army and the Mennonite Central Committee participating in catered monthly meetings for what? To shoot Roy Roberts for being angry that the police, the City and the mental health authorities have been harassing him relentlessly for weeks. For being angry that someone stole his money?
You’re damned right he was angry.
And so are we. You people who hide behind phony titles like ‘Your Worship’, ‘Your Honour’ and whatever other phony metal you can wrap around your necks in order to pass judgment on people like Roy Roberts who has more love, care, respect and dignity under one of his dirty fingernails than you have shown in your adult lives … you need to be told what an awful group of individuals you are.
On Christmas Eve you used your police goons to forcefully remove the men and women engaged in a peaceful protest in Jubilee Park by lying to a Supreme Court Judge about the available shelters for drug addicts, alcoholics and the mentally ill. After you forced the high barrier shelters to put emergency weather procedures into effect, the homeless were scattered like rats to all their usual haunts in the gutters and along the railway tracks.
On Easter weekend you took a mentally ill man’s entire possessions and threw them in the dump after cornering him, confusing him, calling him by another name when you knew who he was, and then you mercilessly shot him repeatedly with rubber bullets until he crumpled under the onslaught.
It was Roy for god’s sake. You’ve had 200 interactions with him over the last ten years. You didn’t write down his name!!!
Should Abbotsford Tourism warn travelers that if they suffer from any mental illness and get robbed of their money while in Abbotsford … we’ll shoot them?
What the hell is the matter with you?
What kind of people are you?
You make the citizens of this community sick.
I hope 140,000 citizens of Abbotsford sign this petition and that you all have to hide in your homes in shame for what you have done. I hope 240,000 more around the world make it so no one will ever forget the shooting of Roy Roberts and the community leaders who let it happen. The same people who brought you the Chicken Manure Incident brought you the Shooting of Roy Roberts.
I almost feel a country song coming on …
Mayor Banman you have completely lost control of your city and the fact that your first impulse will be to defend your private police force tells us everything we need to know.
As for the police men who cowered behind a car like frightened children and shot Roy Roberts I hope you have all practiced carefully how to answer your children and your grandchildren when they ask you what you were doing in that video. The video is going to be around long after anyone has any memory of you.
Please help ensure what happened to Roy doesn’t have to happen to anyone, ever again.
View the video below and if you can suppress your anger for just a moment please sign the petition and pass it on.
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