Vancouver police investigate potential hate crime, fliers attack school board candidate
Posted October 12, 2018 8:02 pm.
Last Updated October 12, 2018 10:30 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Fliers posted around Vancouver last weekend attacking a Vancouver School Board candidate Morgane Oger may have gone too far.
Vancouver police are investigating the situation as a potential hate crime. The posters attack her because she is a transgender woman.
Oger says she was contacted by police recently who told her the same person who handed out fliers attacking her in 2017 was planning to do it again. She’s already filed a human rights complaint against him for those fliers, arguing they were hate speech.
As for the new ones she says they’re unacceptable as well.
“It feels terrible to have someone target you like this. This man is trying to shame me about who I am, that means he believes I should be ashamed for who I am,” she says. “That hurts.”
Those posters say that God doesn’t want people to vote for her, and attacks her because of her gender identity.
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They also make disparaging comments about other LGBTQ people. Oger says she’s also concerned for others who may be affected by reading the hand-outs.
“Imagine that you are a youth, and you’re not out to your family for being gay or being trans, and you find this flyer in your home, in your mailbox,” she says. “That would be terrible experience.”
Victim hopes for justice
Oger also wonders why, in 2017, crown prosecutors did not pursue criminal charges against the person who made the fliers. She’s hoping this time they might make a different choice.
“I have heard a lot of ugly, ugly stories about justice not being carried out from the victim’s side, and there are too many of those stories,” she says. “I hope that our newfound human rights protections against discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression will energize the Crown and the police forces to ensure that justice is carried out.”
Vancouver police are saying this about the incident.
“The VPD is aware of the posters and is investigating. We don’t have any additional information to share publicly at this time,” reads the statement. “We encourage anyone who feels they have been a victim of a crime, or has information about a crime, to make a report with their local police.”
