Union Gospel Mission suspends employee after video shows man allegedly filming woman on Vancouver street

A staff member at Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission (UGM) has been suspended after a video was posted online, showing a man allegedly filming a woman without her consent.

The video shows an interaction between the woman, sitting in her vehicle, and the man she claims was recording her from the street. During their interaction, the man said he is a “volunteer in the women’s shelter” at UGM.

UGM’s Media Relations Manager, Nicole Mucci, explained that the man in the video is not a volunteer, but rather a UGM staff member, adding that he works in the kitchen.

“This individual’s role — he actually never worked directly with women and children in our Women and Families building, and he was never in a position of ever being unsupervised with any of our tenants or program participants,” said Mucci.

She says the mission takes the video’s content very seriously.

“Our people and culture team immediately launched an investigation; he was suspended; and we were able to start to take steps to just really ensure that our community is as safe as possible.”

The woman — who we are calling Emily to protect her identity — says the incident happened around noon Thursday.

In the video, Emily can be heard repeatedly asking the man to delete any footage of her. The man appears to be holding a beer can.

Emily says she was fearful for her safety when she noticed the man filming her and confronted him. But the interaction didn’t end there; the man allegedly followed the woman to a coffee shop before shouting at her. 

“When I thought he was gone and I was trying to walk out of the cafe, he was screaming horrible things at me, like all kinds of slurs and names and threats. So obviously, this is someone that shouldn’t be working in a woman’s shelter at all.”

She says the whole experience was unsettling and she doesn’t know what the man has been doing with the videos.

Mucci says UGM is grateful to Emily and other concerned citizens who let the organization know about the video.

“We hope that our community members and that those who are concerned feel assured that we are responding to the contents of the video with just complete urgency and diligence. We share those concerns equally, and we really want to ensure that the safety of the women and the families that we serve always stays our highest priority.”

Meanwhile, Emily says she’s glad the shelter is taking the incident seriously.

1130 NewsRadio has reached out to the Vancouver Police Department for more information.