Pubdate: Wed, 06 Oct 2010
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2010 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Andy Ivens

DTES ACTIVIST KNOWS OF SIX WOMEN THROWN OUT WINDOWS OVER DRUG DEBTS

A Downtown Eastside activist said she knows of six women in the
drug-ridden community who have been thrown out of windows as
punishment by drug dealers intent on collecting their debts.

Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women's
Support Services, is calling on the Vancouver Police Department to
join activists in working to put an end to the violence.

Ashley Nicole Machiskinic, a 22-year-old Downtown Eastside (DTES)
resident, fell out of a fifth-storey window to her death on Sept. 15.

MacDougall and a large group of Machiskinic's supporters are convinced
it was murder.

"The rapes and the beatings are standard [punishment by drug dealers].
What is a little bit unusual are women's heads being shaved . . . and
women coming out of windows," MacDougall said Tuesday.

"I know of about six in the last two years. They're not deaths all the
time, but to injury or death - they are thrown out of windows.

"We know this is a way that drug dealers deal with debts," she
said.

MacDougall said she doesn't know who killed Machiskinic, but people in
the DTES are afraid to tell police investigating her death what they
know.

MacDougall was one of three protesters arrested Monday night after
refusing to leave the VPD's Main Street headquarters at the end of a
vigil and march. She was released after five hours and faces a charge
of assault by trespassing.

The activists want to meet with VPD Chief Jim Chu.

They contend the VPD is not treating Machiskinic's death as
suspicious, but a spokesman for the VPD said the "incident . . . has
been actively under investigation since it was initially reported to
the VPD."

"The investigation into the death of Ashley Machiskinic, which is
being managed by the Vancouver Police Major Crime Section and involves
detectives from the Homicide Unit, remains active and open," said the
statement.
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