Natives were drunk, police say: [Early Edition]

Rusnell, Charles.Edmonton Journal; Edmonton, Alta. [Edmonton, Alta]31 Jan 2007: A3.

EDMONTON - The senior Edmonton police officer in charge of investigating allegations that
nine homeless native people were taken off the street, held against their will in a sweltering
van for two hours and then dumped in a northside neighbourhood, denied Tuesday that
police had buried the case.

But Insp. Brad Doucette could not fully explain why it took police more than 18 months to
commence a criminal investigation into public allegations that the native people had been
unlawfully confined.

As reported in The Journal Tuesday, the EPS recently began a criminal investigation
following a complaint from the Criminal Trial Lawyers' Association. Doucette said the
investigation will also look at how the incident was initially investigated by internal affairs
more than 18 months ago.

According to two of the homeless people interviewed by The Journal, a police van began
picking them up off Whyte Avenue at about 5:30 p.m. on May 20, 2005. The van cruised the
street picking up people until nine of them were crammed into a space designed for six.
There was no air conditioning and some people became so hot they removed some of their
clothes.

After about two hours, the group was dropped off at 127th Avenue and 80th Street. One
woman had to urinate so badly she immediately dropped her pants and relieved herself on
the street.

There were no charges and Diane Wood, one of the homeless people, said the officers
refused to give their badge numbers.

"We wanted their badges because they kept us in there for nothing," Wood said.

A nearby homeowner called police and the nine were transported by police van to a
homeless shelter. A resident filed a formal complaint about the natives being dumped in the
neighbourhood.
Doucette said the case was investigated shortly after the incident occurred and no breach of
EPS policy was found. He said the officers picked up the natives because it was believed
they were drunk. He said EPS policy allows officers several options for dealing with drunk
people that don't include putting them in jail.

Gwilym Davies, the lawyer for the CTLA, doubted that the policy would allow police to pick
up people and hold them against their will in a sweltering van for two hours before dumping
them in a randomly chosen neighbourhood. Davies said that, to the contrary, the police can
only take people into custody if they are so intoxicated "they are incapable of looking after
themselves such that they are a danger to themselves or to others.

"These people don't admit that. In fact, at least four completely deny it."

Doucette conceded the investigators who conducted the initial investigation did not speak to
any of the homeless people. The initial investigation only dealt with the complaint from the
homeowner who was unhappy about the native people being dumped in her neighbourhood,
north of Yellowhead Trail.

Some of the nine people rounded up by police are vendors of Street News, a newspaper
produced by volunteers and sold on the street. In the June 2005 edition of Street News,
editor Linda Dumont detailed how the group was rounded up on May 20 that year.

Doucette said police did not investigate the allegations contained in that article because they
simply didn't see it. He couldn't explain, however, why police only started an investigation
this month when Chief Mike Boyd was sent a copy of the Street News article in early

February 2006 by lawyer Tom Engel, who is now acting for two of the homeless people.

Documents obtained through Freedom of Information raise questions about how Boyd and
internal affairs dealt with Engel's complaint.

The documents show Engel wrote the chief on Feb. 3, 2006. He included a copy of the
Street News article and asked Boyd if the allegations contained in the article had been
investigated. The documents show that the allegations had not been investigated. In a Feb.
13, 2006 memo, Kim Armstrong, the former head of the EPS Professional Standards branch,
told Boyd that internal affairs had no record of the allegations.
"I recommend that the matter be directed to IA for investigation with you being the
complainant."

Boyd ordered the investigation and Armstrong, who is no longer with the EPS, sent a memo
on Feb. 13, 2006 to Staff Sgt. Graham Hogg telling him to commence an investigation into
the allegations contained in the article.

Hogg was also directed to send a letter to Engel advising him that the matter has been sent
to IA by the chief for investigation.

But inexplicably, the letter sent to Engel on Feb. 28, 2006, which was signed by Boyd, stated
that the incident referred to in the Street News article had been investigated in 2005 following
a complaint from a resident.

"The matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of the complainant," Boyd wrote.

Documents show that on that same day, Engel's complaint was "reclassified" to "information
only" and the file was apparently closed.

The CTLA has asked the Edmonton Police Commission to bring in an outside police force to
investigate the complaint. Commission vice- chairman Murray Billett said the commission will
make that decision at its next meeting Feb. 21.

crusnell@thejournal.canwest.com

Illustration
Photo: Brian J. Gavriloff, The Journal / Christopher Robillard and Diane Wood say they were
among nine people picked up by police on Whyte Avenue in May, 2005, held in a van for two
hours and then dropped off in a northeast neighbourhood. ;

Word count: 951

(Copyright Edmonton Journal 2007)