By Jeff Shantz and Eva Ureta, June 25, 2020

On June 21, the abolitionists who have been organizing the Free Them All noise demos at carceral sites across the lower mainland of so-called BC, held an Anti(fa)ther’s Day action at the BC RCMP Headquarters in Surrey. One intention was to connect the calls for prison abolition with calls to abolish police, recognizing that carceral structures are all connected and serve inextricably linked ends of colonialism and capitalism.

People went to the RCMP monument for “fallen officers” where they were immediately confronted by RCMP officers. One officer aggressively told people that the monument was private property, despite the RCMP being a supposedly public force which is of course massively publicly funded. One participant informed the officer that the monument (and the RCMP HQ itself) is on stolen Indigenous land. The officer responded that that was a discussion “for another day.” This despite the fact the day in question was National Indigenous Peoples Day. If not then, when?

This interaction was recorded on video and can be viewed here: https://twitter.com/critcrim/status/1274811030175014912

Those assembled for the action did not leave as the RCMP hoped. Instead a banner was raised with the names of people killed by police in RCMP over the last couple of decades. More civilians have been killed by RCMP over the last decades than RCMP killed by civilians ever.

The new BC RCMP Headquarters building came at an initial cost of almost $1 billion. One can imagine the community resources that could have been supported for $1 billion. This does not include operating costs for the force, of course.