During the March 15 protest in Vancouver, this guy was the main Scientology photographer, taking photos of the anonymous people and nonanons like me. He seemed to seethe, however, when I took his picture as he was taking mine.
Also see my picket report.
At the April 12 protest, when it was time to leave, I headed out with a couple of friends, who’d been watching my back, to whatever extent it was watched as I’d moved among the crowd. We walked a couple of blocks west on Hastings and turned left and uphill on Seymour.
I was thinking that if you’re on foot, and you think someone is following you, in a city and in certain circumstances, you can turn a corner into a stretch of sidewalk where your pursuer can’t see you for some time, and instead of continuing walking, stop and keep a focus on where the pursuer must come into view. The pursuer will almost automatically be scanning for you, because you’ve been out of view.
Circumstances such as, for example, being pursued by assassins, wouldn’t normally involve stopping to determine if they were after you. In this case, I was really thinking of my two friends. The cult was apparently desperate enough to ID them that they’d follow us. The cult knows who I am and where I go, and probably wouldn’t send anyone to follow me because I’d make him or move so fast.
In any event, my friends kept walking and I stopped and looked back and sure enough, the red shirt guy, cult’s photographer from March 15, came into view and I made instant eye contact with him. He jumped back behind a pole. I whooped at my friends and headed right toward the guy, across Hastings. I saw take off and enter a building, The Harbour Centre, at 555 W. Hastings. The Scientology org is at 401.
I followed him down an escalator moving as quickly as I could with my back pack on. I got my camera out and got a shot of him just getting off the escalator.
All the other shots I took are hopelessly blurred. I caught up with him in a mallway of some kind, and indicated he’d been following me. I tried to engage him to get him to not do these kinds of aggressive things and he told me to piss off. He said that I look like I have AIDS, and then he left, and I didn’t follow. My friends arrived right then, having followed me across Hastings and down the Harbour Centre escalator, and we proceeded on our intended route.
The incident was scary, because our pursuer is a scary guy, and I’m not sure what was accomplished, although I’m glad I made him. Too bad he was so afraid to stop and talk to me because he could have come face to face with my two friends, and talked to them too I suppose. The phrase or charge that I looked like I have AIDS stunned and saddened me because it had been uttered by so many Scientology agents over the years.
From a 1992 letter (for which, by the way, Scientology sought $950,000 in liquidated damages):
Eugene M. Ingram has done such nasty things to so many people in the service of your organization, you and he should be spanked. His terrible charge at the CAN convention that I have AIDS is heartbreaking, not because I have AIDS, which I don’t,but because your pet pit viper personalizes and focuses your organization’s institutionalized hatred.
By accusing me of having AIDS, you and Ingram attack not just me, you attack the many people whose lives have been touched by this disease, or for that matter touched by your organization, and you attack yourself.
Another cult heavy Don Cooper used the same words to me as the Vancouver heavy, that I looked like I have AIDS. And Scientology’s Internet agents have mocked up things like this:
I don’t know if Gerry Armstrong (ROXL AMMSTRONG) uses Aspartame but I heard he’s infected with the AIDS virus. I wonder how he got it. Was it from dirty needles shared with other druggees? Or was it from receiving sex through his rectum.
The fact is that in health I have been extremely blessed. I’m a very fit very fast long distance runner. Mainly trails. I have a totally loving wife. I have a totally loving God. And it is absolutely nuts that the Scientologists and their operatives spread around the black PR that I have AIDS or look like I have AIDS in order to hate me enough to follow me or order me followed.
In any event, Vancouver anonymous, keep an eye out for this fellow. And keep each other’s backs. See you tomorrow.