I have now had several days to digest the decision of the Supreme Court of British Columbia holding that my constitutional rights as a Canadian citizen were violated when the Vancouver police seized my car, strip searched me and held me in jail as result of an unfounded suspicion that I might throw a cream pie at the Prime Minister of Canada. Read the decision here.

The events of August 2, 2002, the day the incident happened, have changed my life and outlook forever. The entire odyssey has dramatically affected the way I perceive the justice system. Although I would not want anyone else to go through what I have endured in the last four and a half years, every police officer, lawyer and judge would benefit immeasurably from a similar experience.

I was a law-abiding citizen with no criminal record when the police confronted me and put handcuffs on my wrists, snatched me off the street, strip-searched me and put me in a 3’x6′ jail cell, with no furnishings whatsoever, for a day. They ignored my requests to call a lawyer and my questions as to why I had been arrested. Despite what the judge concluded, I categorically did not raise my voice before I was handcuffed, so I dispute that I “breached the peace”. After I was handcuffed, I shouted, not to attract media attention, but in the hope another citizen would intervene on my behalf and ask the police to explain themselves.

The day after the events occurred, I asked for an apology. When the VPD refused to apologize I lodged a formal complaint and then started a civil action. Following a police investigation, my formal complaint was dismissed as unsubstantiated. I tried to get the civil case dealt with in a summary one day proceeding (under our Rule 18A) and offered to abandon all issues other than the strip search, but the defendants argued that a full fourteen day trial was necessary. Their lawyers examined me for discovery over three days and the trial itself finally began in the fall of 2006.

Here are some of the fundamental things that have been driven home to me as a result of this experience:

Police can be arrogant and abusive towards citizens with relative impunity.

When an incident becomes the subject of a trial, what police officers testify happened and what actually happened can be very different indeed.

Given the propensity of judges to prefer the testimony of police officers over ordinary citizens, and given the powers police officers exert over suspects (refusing to let them call a lawyer, holding them for hours in a 3’x6′ concrete box), it’s very easy to see how false confessions can be extracted and how people can be wrongfully convicted.

The civil justice system is too slow and too expensive. It favours those with deep pockets and is out of reach for most ordinary people.

The police complaint system in British Columbia is utterly ineffective and needs to be reformed immediately.

What happened to me can happen to anyone unless all of us remain vigilant in demanding that our rights and dignity be respected by those who hold positions of power and authority.

Sixty-five more people died in North America after being Tasered by police in 2006, bringing the total number of such fatalities to 232. The Taser is a controversial “less than lethal” weapon that is designed to inflict excruciating pain and incapacitate subjects with 50,000 volts of electricity. Despite the number of Taser-related deaths, and the deaths of a number of animals as well, the manufacturer and law enforcement officials maintain the weapon is safe.

In a decision released today, Mr. Justice Tysoe of the Supreme Court of British Columbia has declared that Mr. Ward’s constitutional Charter rights were violated when he was imprisoned and strip-searched and when his car was seized on August 1, 2004. The judge awarded damages totalling $10,100 against the defendants, the City of Vancouver and the Province of British Columbia.

The incident occurred on Vancouver’s east side, near an event attended by former Prime Minister Chretien. The police apparently believed that Mr. Ward, a Vancouver lawyer with an unblemished record, might somehow have been plotting to throw a cream pie at the Prime Minister. That of course was false, and despite conducting a lengthy further investigation, the Vancouver police have never been able to produce a shred of evidence to support such a ridiculous assertion.

Mr. Ward’s offers to accept an explanation and an apology from the authorities were rejected, as was his attempt to resolve the civil court case summarily. It is unknown how much taxpayer money the Defendants spent in the four and one half years that culminated in a six day trial. The Province of British Columbia was represented by three lawyers at trial, suggesting that it must have been an expensive exercise indeed.

Read the decision: 2007 BCSC 3 Ward v. City of Vancouver

This case highlights the inadequacies of the British Columbia police complaint process. After failing to obtain an apology, Mr. Ward lodged a formal complaint in 2002 with the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner. The OPCC assigned the investigation to the Abbotsford Police Department, a nearby police force, which found all the complaints about Vancouver Police conduct to be unsubstantiated. So, an impartial judge finds three complaints made out and finds that the police acted unlawfully, while police investigators had somehow reached an opposite conclusion! What’s wrong with this picture?

CTV news report

Kevin St. Arnaud

A coroner’s inquest into the death of Kevin St. Arnaud, 29, is finally scheduled to commence January 18, 2007 in Vanderhoof, B.C., more than two years after the young man was killed by police.

On December 19, 2004, Cst. Sheremetta of the Vanderhoof RCMP was pursuing Mr. St. Arnaud on foot across a soccer field because Mr. St. Arnaud was suspected to have recently committed a break and enter in a local shopping mall. According to a letter from Crown Counsel explaining that no charges would be laid against Sheremetta, Mr. St. Arnaud “came to a stop and put his arms in the air” when “Cst. Sheremetta was approximately fifteen to twenty feet from Mr. St. Arnaud.” When Mr. St. Arnaud “advanced” toward the officer, Cst. Sheremetta fired three bullets into Mr. St. Arnaud’s chest, killing him. Cst. Sheremetta’s female partner was nearby, watching this happen.

According to the letter from Crown Counsel, “no weapons were found on Mr. St. Arnaud.” There is no suggestion in the letter that Mr. St. Arnaud had anything in his possession that could be mistaken for a weapon: no penknife, no TV remote, no portable CD player…just some plastic pill containers. The letter does not explain how a person brandishing pill bottles can cause two police officers to fear for their lives and thereby justify such a shooting.

The inquest is expected to run until the end of the month.

RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli has resigned, a day after his embarrassing testimony before a parliamentary committee about the Arar affair. The RCMP has some fundamental problems, and what it really needs is a good housecleaning and stronger accountability. Time will tell whether the appointment of a new Commissioner is anything more than a band-aid solution.