Statement of Claim

By Stephen Brent

Stephen Brent takes us through 30+ years of unrelenting interference from law enforcement and shares the use of tactics and toolsets. A warning to all Canadians, especially for imigrants.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Brent
• Release date: Dec 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201400385

Book preview

(1)

Woken by a cruise ship announcement to passengers of approaching the Port of Vancouver as it passes Navy Jack point.  It’s just six am and today is the start of a new job today working in the computer department at the Royal Bank Data Centre. This promotion should help me to pay for this apartment and continue to live in this most affluent community in the nation.

Didn’t sleep well and my stomach is in knots. What should of been a great opportunity to use my college education is still tainted by the realization of working shift-work and still working in the same building as my prior job in the Administration Department and under constant pressure by a creepy manager named Dan Knowles. Dan tried pestering me into joining him after work to watch the acappella band Nylons in a concert at Daddy Long Legs.  The forty something grey-haired administration manager kept asking me over to his house to get the low-down on who’s who in the data centre. When nothing worked then Dan tried to get me to join the social committee as a stepping stone into the computer department. Human resources had met my girlfriend and knew of not wanting anything to do with Dan. The worst was being on level B2. The sub-basement was a dry concrete smelling floor that housed the building’s backup power supply room and a dark room behind a vaulted door with rows and rows of tall shelving which was used for archives of paper documents and microfiche.  This was where Dan made his move on me and had to keep stepping away and would time my movements on level B2 with other bank staff with me or when Dan was out of the office. Failing that, gave any level B2 tasks to my assistant named Sunny. A middle-aged Asian man who said and did very little other than continually wipe his hands and clothes off from dust.

Day shift in the new job requires a tie and gave myself a one last look ever in the mirror and walk out my apartment door. If only there had been warning signs that life was now becoming step closer to living nightmare.

Day shift is the easiest shift as the banks computers and banking machines are operating the majority of the computer processing power to the mainframe computers on the 3rd floor of a nondescript three story building at 111 east fifth street. The computer staff walked on an elevated floor as cables were stretch in every direction that connected all the computer peripherals together.

The time past fairly quickly and shift work was just what as thinking it would be. Spending weekends on catching up on missed sleep from the week which cut into my playing of ice hockey and soccer with friends at University of British Columbia and still volunteering for Molson Indy. Volunteers would join a group called Race Event Volunteers Vancouver, for a race-car event that ran on Vancouver's city streets and offered numerous other volunteer opportunities to see other events for free.  It also had the benefit for its volunteers to a list for many more events including offers from Benson and Hedges Symphony of Fire, game day promotions for British Columbia Lions and Vancouver Grizzles. Also, had just moved on from a tourism gig that involved me wearing a Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform for large foreign corporations. A few times we would be talked into a faking an arrest on an unsuspecting tourist inside one of the downtown major hotels.  Outdoors at the Plaza of Nations, that was built for the World Exposition of 1986, held a tourist event for Ford of Mexico. A police band was warming up as a police band member furiously approached me saying I am a Royal Canadian Mounted Police and that you are wearing the Red Guard incorrectly and quickly tried to rearrange the bright red uniform. It wasn’t fun getting publicly yelled at and declined doing this tourist event ever again.

As shift-work imposed on my time, now become even more selective on which volunteering to commit to and was still quite disinterested in socializing with the computer department bank staff.

As summer approached the gentleman, and my predecessor, in the Administration department was coming back to the data centre for a retirement party in his honour. The retired man was a true war veteran with scars to prove it. Back when working together with the retired man, he pointed out that a grenade re-shape his head as his eyes no longer lined up.  Something that was difficult to notice with his large thick glasses.  The retired man is a personal gentleman who clearly had good organization skills when it came to his filing systems, which was passed onto the Administration supervisor who’s job it was to train the new person. Dan mentioned to keep the posting quiet as person named Jed, who wanted the position and this caused me grief with Operations department that Jed worked for.

During the retirement party, the gentleman revealed to me that Human Resources had passed on to him that his replacement was now doing well in the computer department. A number of people from data centre from all departments attended the function including Dan who came back to data centre from his new job just for this event. When it came time for the retired gentleman to speak, the man of the hour mentioned things have changed since his retirement including that Dan had grey-hair and now Dan has black hair which got quite the rise of the party goers. Decided to ignore Dan and hadn’t spoken with him since Dan told me of getting the computer position and that there was a gay computer employee up in the computer department that no one knew about. Had to dismiss any further discussion. Feeling that Dan was wanting to bait me one last time.

The computer personal was a dysfunctional group as the shift work takes it toll on every-bodies social life.  This was not the office group that be worth socializing with living on the North Shore and the office was quite a distance away in East Vancouver.  From time to time a whole shift would go out and rarely joined them.

As my girlfriend was now into her second year in law school at Western University and we haven’t spoken, so it was time to move on. My parents were upset with Heidi for being atheist and when Heidi conned me into buying her a promise ring that suddenly turned into an engagement ring at one of her parent’s high society parties. This was the last straw for my parents and Heidi was ignored by my parents as they crossed paths shopping at Park Royal Mall.

Still having a bank account with Toronto Dominion Bank and occasionally would step into the bank just keep tabs on the accounts and in doing so met a prim and proper teller in downtown branch of Vancouver. We spoke numerous times and finally started to date.

On one date, quizzed her on what her dad did and she responded he’s a cop.  Walked to her car and noticed she had a personalized license plate of Beast. This obviously didn’t match with the bank teller persona. My reluctance to continue seeing her was quite evident as my face couldn't hide it.

A few weeks go by and visited my local Toronto Dominion Bank branch only to find a nasty comment had been left on my checking and savings accounts.  The teller immediately tried to remove the offensive comment with help from the other tellers only having to involve the branch manager.  Once the branch manager was involved it now required phone calls to another branch where the comment was created. This took roughly 40 minutes. 

This was now embarrassing as the branch staff who knew me from being a local little league soccer coach.  With the offensive comment now deleted, and thinking that the issue was over, continued with the banking transaction.

Within weeks co-worker at Royal Bank named Peggy started at me to get a personalized license plate.  Peggy then repeated her efforts with other staff and was forced to just dismiss their efforts.  A few weeks later at a data centre social after work, Peggy came back to her seat and announced that someone had stolen her purse. It was decided to report the theft at the police station. There were four of us that walked through the doors of the police station on Main street. Immediately was separated from the group and told to stand 20 feet away next to a garbage can where a plain clothes cop approached me with goofy skit on spitting his gum into garbage can.