Pubdate: Tue, 31 May 2005
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 The Province
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Andy Ivens
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?236 (Corruption - Outside U.S.)

VPD OFFICERS' CONDUCT DUBBED 'VIGILANTISM'

'They Have Taken The Law Into Their Own Hands'

Two Vancouver police officers were accused yesterday of taking the law into 
their own hands.

"That's what these officers have done," police complaints commissioner Dana 
Urban told adjudicator Donald Clancy. "They have taken the law into their 
own hands for their own purposes."

Urban began his final submissions in the case of Const. Gabriel Kojima and 
Const. Duncan Gemmell, who are fighting for their jobs after pleading 
guilty to assaulting three Granville Street drug dealers in Stanley Park 
two years ago.

After a closed-door hearing in 2004 in which no witness was allowed to 
testify, Vancouver Police Department Chief Jamie Graham ruled Kojima and 
Gemmell should be dismissed for their parts in the assaults of the three 
victims.

Twenty-five days of testimony have left Clancy with a clear choice of whom 
to believe -- either rookie Const. Troy Peters and the three assault 
victims who described severe beatings, or Kojima, Gemmell and their four 
fellow constables who detailed a verbal dressing-down with minimal physical 
contact.

"These officers swore to uphold the law," said Urban. "Police officers are 
expected not to strike back in anger or in vengeance.

"People who do not meet this [high] standard [of conduct] do not meet the 
standard of being police officers."

Grant Wilson, Jason Desjardins and Barry Lawrie all testified that they 
were beaten by the officers at the Third Beach parking lot on Jan. 14, 2003.

"All three are addicted to drugs," noted Urban. "None is a contributing 
member of society.

"They are what they are -- criminals. They are also human beings, citizens 
of this country and as entitled to the rights of this country as anyone else.

"The courts of our land are bound by the rule of law. So are the police."

If the account of Peters is believed, the officers' conduct "amounts to 
vigilantism," said Urban.

Phil Rankin, who represents the three victims in an unresolved civil 
proceeding, said: "This was not just a technical assault -- it was a beating."

He called Peters "the only honourable man" at the scene.

Rankin said the officers felt they had a "just cause" to take back 
Granville Street and followed a fictional "Ways and Means Act" to get 
around the law and give the three "what they deserved."

The hearing continues.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom