Crown prosecutors want Downtown Eastside courthouse relocated due to safety concerns

BC provincial courthouse at 222 Main Street in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. (Google Maps)

The same crime and public safety concerns expressed by Vancouver’s nearby Chinatown business community over the years are now being publicly repeated by Crown prosecutors working at the provincial courthouse in the Downtown Eastside.

In a rare public statement on Monday, the British Columbia Crown Counsel Association (BCCCA) suggested it may now be appropriate to consider relocating Vancouver’s largest provincial courthouse “to a safer neighbourhood, in the interest of public safety.”

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This relocation would be the option of “last resort.”

Many of the Crown prosecutors working at this provincial courthouse at 222 Main Street are also responsible for prosecuting high-risk violent repeat offenders. BCCCA represents the province’s 450 Crown prosecutors.

This possible relocation suggestion follows a random daytime attack on one of the Crown prosecutors on Friday, when she was walking to work after parking her car at a nearby parkade. She was sent to hospital.

Adam Dalrymple, the president of the BCCCA, revealed that courthouse staff already have security guards that walk them to work, which “should be a big red flag about the overall public safety in the Downtown Eastside.”

“It’s not normal to have security walk you to work, and we shouldn’t try to normalize it as though it’s just part of the job,” said Dalrymple in a statement.

He asserts this is not a matter of safety for prosecutors and other court staff, but also for witnesses, victims, or the general public coming to the court, as they do not have security.

“Friday’s attack reinforces the chronic street disorder in the neighbourhood, and it raises real concerns about overall public safety because without that how can you ensure that justice is safe and accessible for victims and witnesses who come to court and don’t get security to walk them to the courthouse,” he said.

“That things are so bad that people working in the courthouse need security to walk them to work speaks volumes and reinforces the danger that has grown out of the serious addiction and mental health issues hurting the Downtown Eastside.”

Dalrymple suggests, “It’s time for a serious discussion about whether Vancouver’s Main Street courthouse should be relocated.”

The provincial courthouse at 222 Main Street was originally co-located with the adjacent Vancouver Police Department (VPD) headquarters, which left the space in 2011 when it relocated much of its operations to the former VANOC headquarters at 3585 Graveley Street in East Vancouver. VPD now has a smaller physical presence in the immediate area within the comparatively newer annex building of the former headquarters.

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