Tot traumatized by sight of RCMP arresting senior at Wreck Beach

Timur Reynolds is a bit old to be tossing his toys out of his stroller, but the four-year-old might throw out his police cars after he saw RCMP put a senior in handcuffs on Wreck Beach last week.

According to his father, Jonathon Reynolds, 47, the 70-something man was doing nobody any harm, but the RCMP, which polices the campus and environs, put him in cuffs and took him away on August 9 as father and son, along with wife, Lily, waited for sunset at the famed beach.

Jonathon said Timur might remember that day for a long time, adding that it has already affected his behaviour back at his home.

“He will, for sure,” Reynolds Sr., an online publisher, told the Straight by phone. “It even goes to the point where we go by the police and the fire station here—[which] are together—and we’ve always gone by one side on the way to the store and by one side on the way back. Now he only walks by the fire station side. He still likes the firemen, but he doesn’t like the police.”

Reynolds said he was unaware that beach regulars and activists Watermelon and Judy Williams, president of the Wreck Beach Preservation Society, had relayed to the Straight their own concerns about Metro Vancouver’s own park “goons” after they tried to ban the beach diva for 72 hours on August 1.

The Straight emailed and phoned Sgt. Paulena Gidda of the nearby UBC RCMP detachment, but she declined to comment.