The lengthy criminal trial of five people charged after a disturbance at Britannia Community Centre in October of 2002 has finally ended. Rev. George Feenstra and several others were charged with assaulting police officers, obstructing police officers, causing a disturbance and being members of an unlawful assembly after a planned visit to the centre by Premier Gordon Campbell was called off.

According to the evidence at trial, Rev. Feenstra was dressed up as a clown when he was grabbed by the police, handcuffed, and thrust against a wall. He was strip-searched and jailed for about 30 hours. The Crown called dozens of police officers from the Vancouver Police Department as witnesses. After nineteen days of trial, Rev. Feenstra was acquitted of all charges. Judge Smyth is expected to render a verdict in the cases of the remaining four accused on June 24, 2004.

Warm, dry and sober: Solicitor General Rich Coleman and Vancouver Police Union President Tom Stamatakis enjoy a recent function with the Lieutenant Governor

On Wednesday, March 18, 2004, The Province newspaper reported that British Columbia Solicitor General Rich Coleman had refused a formal request from the province’s Police Complaint Commissioner to hold a public inquiry into the death of Frank Joseph Paul.

Mr. Paul, an intoxicated 47 year old Mi’kmaq, died on December 6, 1998 after a Vancouver police officer and a provincial corrections officer dragged his rain-soaked and motionless body out of the Vancouver Jail and dumped him in a nearby alley. Since it was December, he froze to death.

The Police Complaint Commissioner, Dirk Ryneveld, Q.C., supported his request with volumes of new records and his plea was endorsed by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, editorials in the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Courier and scores of community groups and associations. All this apparently fell on deaf ears. Mr. Coleman, a former police officer himself, was unmoved.

At a public rally outside the Vancouver Police headquarters on March 19, 2004, Chief Stewart Phillip deplored Coleman’s decision as ‘racist’.

After reflection, I have to agree. What other reason could there possibly be for this outrageous decision? After all, in Mr. Coleman’s world, wasn’t Frank Paul just another drunken Indian? If Mr. Paul had been a white businessman from Shaughnessy, there would have been a different approach. (Of course, if he had been a white businessman, he probably wouldn’t hve been subjected to such abuse in the first place).

At the public hearing into the the death of Jeff Berg at the hands of Vancouver police Department Cst. David Bruce-Thomas in October of 2000, Commission Counsel Dana Urban, Q.C. characterized the VPD’s internal investigation as “incompetent at best”. He also accused the internal investigators of ignoring a key independent civilian eyewitness and dissuading others from testifying at the hearing.

Urban said that the accounts of three civilian eyewitnesses indicated that Jeff Berg had surrendered to the police and was standing quietly when Bruce-Thomas hit him in the head or neck with his handgun and knocked him to the ground. He was then kicked in the head three times. According to Urban, expert evidence suggests that Berg was clinically dead, and therefore not resisting, when the kicks landed on his head. The pathologist’s report of the autopsy states that Berg died of a blow to the neck and had bruises and lacerations to his head and a severely bruised testicle.

Urban made his remarks at a case management conference where Berg family lawyer Cameron Ward was seeking standing to cross-examine witnesses and obtain disclosure of police reports related to the incident. Urban supported the application, to the dismay of police lawyer Bill Smart, Q.C.

After reviewing the “incompetent” internal investigation report, Crown Counsel decided not to lay any charges against Cst. Bruce-Thomas. Remarkably, although a coroner’s inquest is mandatory in this case of an in-custody police homicide, one has not been scheduled yet.

Meanwhile, Jeff Berg’s sister Julie and the rest of her family still wait for answers.

After over five years and three months, the Vancouver Police Department says that the conduct of its “crowd control unit” in a 1998 incident has been vindicated by a six thousand page, $800,000 report. The report itself has not been released yet.

In the incident, captured on videotape, about fifty police officers in riot gear emerged from the Hyatt Hotel and began clubbing people who had congregated outside to demonstrate against a visit by then Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Several demonstrators were injured and taken to hospital for treatment.

The report comes after a year-long internal investigation by the VPD, a public hearing launched by the Police Complaint Commission and aborted after several years of litigation launched by the police lawyers and a four year civil suit filed against the City. While it is never easy to estimate the costs of these undertakings, my estimate of the cost to British Columbia’s and Vancouver’s taxpayers follows:

Year-long VPD investigation: $300,000

Public hearing and related litigation: $1,500,000

Four year civil action: $500,000

Year-long external investigation: $800,000

Studies have shown that most people who complain about alleged police misconduct just want an acknowledgment of responsibility and an apology for injuries, especially where those injuries are not disabling. This case was probably no different. As a result of the City’s stubborness, taxpayers may have shelled out at least $3.1 million for an incident that lasted about 45 seconds.

The public hearing into Julie Berg’s complaint that police used excessive force in dealing with her brother resumes on Monday, March 15, 2004 with a further “case management conference”. We will be applying for standing to participate in the hearing and for disclosure of the contents of police files.

Ms. Berg has tried vainly to obtain answers from the authorities ever since her brother Jeff was killed in October, 2000 after he was assaulted by a police officer. She filed her formal complaint in November, 2000. The police officer involved, VPD Cst. David Bruce-Thomas, was never charged, there has been no Coroner’s Inquest yet (though one is mandatory) and the Police Complaint Commission public hearing has been adjourned to June, 2004, after some police witnesses refused to be interviewed by Commission counsel.

The case management conference will commence at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, March 15, 2004 in courtroom 108, 800 Hornby Street, Vancouver.