THE
STORY BEHIND THE POEM SCREAMIN SALLY DAVIES
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During the summer months in the Downtown
Eastside of Vancouver, which includes Skid Road and touristy areas of Gastown
and Chinatown, the good weather brings out more problems. Drug dealers
and other denizens of the neighbourhood like good weather too. In addition
we are in the middle of tourist season, and all the schools are out, so
there is a massive influx of people to the area. As a result, the crime
rate goes up, as does other associated problems. In an effort to combat
this, Project DEEP was born. DEEP standing for Downtown Eastside Extraordinary
Policing. This basically means flooding the area with extra foot patrol
members working on overtime.
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During this particular busy evening,
the DEEP patrols were out, including young constables 1850 Sally Davies
and her partner 1750 Brad Picard. (The higher the number, the more junior
the police person). On this particular event, Sally suddenly broke through
all the air traffic to broadcast Code Four, which in Vancouver Police radio
codes, means "I want radio air priority".
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It seems that Sally and Brad, were
doing a routine check on one of the plethora of drug dealers who hang out,
selling their wares. For some reason, he suddenly decided that he had to
get away, and broke into a run. Neither Sally or Brad knew why, although
less than a half hour before and four blocks away, there had been a serious
stabbing. Maybe he was their suspect.
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Well, Sally it seems got a little
carried away in the excitement, and her radio broadcasts were screamed
with such intensity that they came through completely garbled. All we heard
was Papa Seven One (their call-sign), Code Four. The rest was impossible
to understand. Nobody knew where they were or what was happening. Even
more scary, is suddenly the radio went silent and there was no response
from Sally to calls from radio.
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Finally the tension was broken, when
Sally came on the air, gasping for breath, and clearly said, "he’s in custody,
everything is under control, no cover required". We still didn’t know where
she was and after a few more minutes, we discovered they were at Cambie
and Hastings Streets.
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There has been other police personnel,
who have a habit of screaming into their radios and as a result, anyone
who does it gets roundly teased for their lack of composure. Well for the
rest of the evening, Sally got just that. I met up with her and her partner
later in the evening, and while she didn’t know who I was to see me, she
knew my name. So I just said in passing, "hmmm, what rhymes with Sally?",
to hint that a poem might be coming. She immediately challenged me saying,
"nothing rhymes with Sally, you can’t rhyme it". So I immediately took
up the challenge and that’s why the poem concludes the way it does.
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