(This column was published in the North Shore News on Dec. 3, 2003)
Starlight ride leads to cops' guilty pleas
By Leo Knight
THE first thing we need to do is dial down the rhetoric.
In discussing the guilty pleas by six Vancouver police officers last week, the media have been on overdrive, the needles on their hyperbole meters buried in the red.
The day after the pleas were announced by Crown prosecutor Robert Gourlay, The Vancouver Sun blared the headline: Six Officers Plead Guilty to Stanley Park Beatings.
The normally mild-mannered and fair radio personality Bill Good, referred to the police actions as "abductions" and said they "beat up" the three "men" in Stanley Park.
The three so-called victims are hardly that. They are street punks, dope dealers and all-around low-lifes. They were and are well-known to police who work the Granville Street beat and equally well-known to local businesses who are regularly victim to their excesses.
Nor are they "kids" as one radio talk show caller tried to portray them. They are 29, 34 and 37 years old respectively, hardly teens who have strayed from the straight and narrow. I think they are habitual criminals who simply will never follow the rule of law or acceptable behaviour.
Having said that, the police officers involved erred in the wee hours of Jan. 14. But let's be clear, they did not "abduct" the three. They were arrested because they refused to stop being a problem in the 1100-block of Granville Street.
One of the three, Grant Wilson, had been arrested a half hour earlier and had been transported from the area to Main and Hastings. He made his way back and re-engaged with the other two.
At 4:30 that fateful morning, they were causing a disturbance and were arrested by two Vancouver Police Department officers. For the second time that night, Wilson resisted arrest. A decision was made to "breach" the three men and the female acquaintance, Shannon Pritchard, who had joined them.
Section 31 of the Criminal Code empowers the police to arrest someone causing a breach of the peace and hold, and remove the person to prevent the breach from continuing. This is a frequently used section of the Criminal Code. It is not "abducting" people from the street. It is not a "starlight ride." It is the law.
Along the way to Stanley Park, Pritchard was released without incident. The remaining three were transported to Third Beach and ordered out of the police wagon. They should have let them off individually at Sunset, Second and Third beaches respectively and probably none of this would have resulted. But hindsight is 20-20.
At Third Beach, Barry Lawrie, was released from the wagon. One officer, Const. Raymond Gardner, verbally berated Lawrie. He punctuated his comments by poking him in the chest. That was a technical assault. It is not a beating.
Const. Brandon Steele, the wagon driver that night, also gave him a shove to move on. He was also, according to the facts read into court, "jostled."
Several days after the story broke last January, Lawrie was interviewed by a couple of TV crews.
He had facial cuts and some swelling on his face. The inference was that the injuries were suffered at the hands of the police. They were not.
He was poked, shoved and jostled along with being given a verbal dressing down by the police. That was it.
The second guy, Jason Desjardins, rushed one of the officers, Duncan Gemmell, once the door to the wagon compartment he was in was opened. He took a punch to the stomach for his trouble. He fell against the wagon bumper and stood up again. He got shoved a couple of times and another officer, Const. Gabriel Kojima gave him a little shot with his baton to the knee.
The final man, the aforementioned Wilson, the oldest of the trio at 37, was then released from his compartment. He too got berated by the cops. He also got punched in the midsection, once. And he got shoved. Wilson was the only of the three who was injured, if you can call it that. He received three abrasions to the forehead. He was not beaten up.
Admittedly, shoving, poking and verbally berating a street punk is not professional and it should not have occurred. But the cops are human too. And they are frustrated by a system that gives them no support in protecting the community they serve.
They are also junior in service. The most senior was an acting sergeant and only had four years experience. The most junior was on his first day out of the academy. And it is because of him that at least one will probably lose his job.
A decision was made in the process of writing up the incident to exclude him from the report as though he wasn't there. Noble in intention perhaps, in trying to protect a junior member from potential problems, but it is falsifying a report. This is the action that led to the obstruction of justice charges which were laid against the officer, but later dropped in the plea bargain arrangement.
But just because the court process is complete on that charge, the matter is not over.
Under the Police Act, the officers will also face an internal disciplinary hearing with a senior officer sitting in judgment. It is in that forum the axe quite likely may fall.
Whatever mistakes those officers made that fateful night, and mistakes they did make, they have paid a significant price already. If they manage to keep their jobs, their careers have been dramatically affected. They have suffered the indignity of being in the dock, a humiliating experience for a police officer. And they have been demonized in the press.
They hardly need the media to exacerbate the minor nature of their offences using terms like abduction and beatings.
Judge them for what they did, not for what the media claim they did.
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