File photo (Image credit: CFJC)

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: Security guard lives in limbo long after Victoria Street West incident

Nov 19, 2022 | 8:02 AM

‘IT HAS NOT BEEN an easy year,” says Rick Eldridge as we sit in a downtown coffee shop.

He wears a Ronik Security ballcap and jacket; his hair and beard look longer and whiter than the last time we spoke. It’s been a year and a half since a viral Facebook video caught him confronting a belligerent street character on Victoria Street West, an incident that changed his life.

He was working security on the street for a different company and had asked the man to move along. Things got physical; Eldridge said at the time he was defending himself. Though some admired him for it, he lost his job and his security licence over it, and his car became his main home.

Eventually, he got his licence back and job offers came in but then, months after the incident, RCMP belatedly recommended an assault charge against him.

Though he was hired by Ronik and is currently doing the graveyard shift at a downtown bank that’s under renovation, he describes a life in limbo, marked by frequent court appearances due to the assault charge. He can’t discuss details of the case but he can talk about what’s happened to him since the incident.

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His Catch-22 is that he can’t afford a criminal lawyer and isn’t eligible for Legal Aid because he has a job. So each time he’s called back to court — he says it’s been more than a half dozen times — his trial date is postponed again because he has no legal representation.

In the meantime, he continues to sleep in his car, which he parks in a secure compound owned by a friend on Victoria Street West. “I sleep for a couple of hours and then run the car for a few minutes,” he says in reference to the recent cold weather.

On a security guard’s pay, he can’t find an affordable place to rent in Kamloops’ tight housing market. “Try to rent a place when you don’t have a place,” he says, adding he doesn’t qualify for any type of subsidized housing because he’s employed. “I’m not homeless, on drugs or mentally ill so I don’t qualify,” Eldridge says.

“I could quit my job, live on the street, push a shopping cart and do some heroin. That seems to be what they want.”

While he sometimes sounds bitter, it’s not because of Victoria Street West or the people he used to deal with there as part of his job. In fact, he says, “It’s the only place I feel safe.” He adds, “I’ve helped a lot of people” and is still “well-respected” there.

He sympathizes with those who are down on their luck and need help but believes most of the street population on Victoria West are involved in criminal activity to some degree or another, and he has little good to say about the system that has created the problem. “We’ve turned into a community of enablers.”

In his estimation, the number of people living on the street in Kamloops is probably closer to 400 than the 250 or 260 usually quoted. And he doesn’t buy the claim that they’re locals. They come from all over, he says, from across B.C. and beyond.

He shakes his head sadly as he describes property break-ins, vandalism, defecating on the front steps of businesses, theft of catalytic converters from vehicles, graffiti and fires.

Additional security helps little because “the only weapon” a security guard has is a phone to call police, and the police don’t come.

Eldridge agrees with Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson and Coun. Bill Sarai in their quest to have an independent third-party audit of support services done. He says it should include detailed nightly bed counts in the shelters, and a close examination of the services being provided to the homeless. “Wrap-around services my ass,” he scoffs.

As far as his own situation is concerned, he’s had enough. He thought about starting a GoFundMe page to raise money for a lawyer but, instead, talks of giving notice on his job, going on welfare, getting a Legal Aid lawyer, and getting his assault trial dealt with. When the legal issue is resolved, he wants to go back to the Yukon, where he lived before moving to Kamloops.

“I’ve been treated like sh– ever since I got here,” he says dejectedly in reference to the legal and policing system, but is quick to add that friends have had his back and that Ronik “is an awesome company to work for.” Until the court case is done, though, he can’t leave B.C.

And what if he’s found guilty? “If they put me in jail, I’ll have a bed and three meals a day. I really don’t care.”

As we talk, I can’t help wondering where the justice is in Rick Eldridge’s situation. A barista lets us know the place will be closing in a few minutes and, as we wrap up, he declines having a new picture taken, joking about his rough appearance.

Out on the street, he says, “Time to go back to sleep,” and heads for his car.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.