A Police Scene on Hastings

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Passerbys and police look out over the intersection of Hastings and Cambie. This corner marks the boundary between the trendy Gastown district and the Downtown Eastside, Canada’s poorest postal code and last night the scene of two unrelated shootings.

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Policemen guard the perimeter while across the street members of the Gang Task Force question witnesses and reconstruct the scene of the crime. A strung-out homeless man tells me everything the police knows and more about the victim, whose name was ‘Steve’ and evidently was quite a good friend.

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Police tape blocks access to one of the Downtown Eastside’s infamous alleyways. Behind me, a drug dealer explains the situation to an associate on the phone, muttering “this isn’t good for business, this isn’t good at all.”

Author

Austin Andrews is a Vancouver-based photojournalist and occasional filmmaker with a penchant for finding the fantastic in the everyday. Contact him at austin [at] disposablewords [dot] net

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