SLAIN POLICE OFFICER 'A GOOD FAMILY MAN'

When Constable Daniel Tessier was declared dead yesterday at Charles
LeMoyne Hospital in Greenfield Park, Laval police chief Jean-Pierre
Gariepy knew the impact on staff morale was going to be considerable.

Just 15 months ago, another Laval police officer, Constable Valerie
Gignac, was shot dead in the line of duty.

So before Laval police would confirm they lost one of their own in a
pre-dawn drug raid in Brossard, Gariepy personally delivered the bad
news to detectives' headquarters on Le Corbusier Blvd., where Tessier
was based.

Then Gariepy made a second visit - to the building on St. Martin
Blvd. that houses the uniformed branch. The building was renamed
Edifice Valerie Gignac last December.

"Our people are in deep shock, very heavy shock," explained a
composed and eloquent Gariepy at a noon news conference at Laval
police headquarters.

Tessier, 42, the husband of Repentigny police Constable Dominique
Lapointe, and father of two daughters, age 10 and 12, will probably
be honoured at a civic funeral in Laval next Thursday or Friday.

Flags at Laval's city hall will fly at half-staff until Tessier is
buried, city officials said.

Tessier was shot during a pre-dawn police raid on Rimouski Cres. in
Brossard, on the South Shore. Laval Constable Stephane Forbes, 46,
one of at least 13 other officers involved in the raid, was shot in
the arm and was in good condition yesterday in a hospital.

One of two adults who were inside the Brossard home was arrested.

Simultaneous raids in Laval resulted in six arrests. The seven
arrests are related to a nine-month investigation into a cocaine and
crack-cocaine trafficking gang that was based mainly out of the
Chomedey district of Laval.

By last night, one of those six arrested in Laval had been released
without charge.

The others are: Nikolaos Xanthis, 26, charged with possession with
intent to traffic, and possession of a prohibited weapon; Constantine
Xanthis, 23, charged with nine counts of trafficking; Kosta
Katsiouleris, 29, charged with nine counts of trafficking; Hari
Katsiousleris, 25, charged with one count of trafficking; and
Emmanuel Mavroudis, 21, charged with 12 counts of trafficking.

Bail hearings are to be held next week.

As is required when a police force is involved in an exchange of
gunfire in which there is a fatality, the investigation has been
handed to another force - in this case, the Surete du Quebec.

The SQ have identified the man and woman who were in the Brossard
house at the time of the fatal raid, Lt. Francois Dore said last
night, but would not make their names public.

However, according to land records and neighbours, the spacious,
two-storey Brossard home has been owned since 2004 by Billy Basil
Parasiris and his spouse, Penny Panagiota Gounis.

The woman was shot during the exchange of fire and transported to a
hospital, where she remained last night, the SQ said.

The man was arrested by Laval police and later turned over to the SQ.
He was being questioned by SQ investigators and was to be transferred
to the Riviere des Prairies detention centre last night. He will
probably appear in the Longueuil courthouse Monday morning, the SQ
said, but the police would not specify what charges he would face.

A 6-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy - who are believed to be the
children of the man and woman - were also in the house, Dore said.

Yesterday's raid came only a week after Tessier's appointment to the
Laval force's drug and morality squad, although the constable had 17
years of experience with the force.

Gariepy said Tessier had undergone specialized training and was
qualified to handle a situation like the one that unfolded tragically
in Brossard around

5 a.m. "Sometimes when we deal with these kinds of people (i.e.,
suspected drug dealers), it's like if you flip a coin. You get lucky
- - or it turns out to be the other way. This morning, it turned out
the other way."

Gariepy later returned to the gambling theme.

"We have dangerous work," he said. "And when you do dangerous work,
there are risks. You have the training, you have all the equipment
necessary - but still, you're left with an extremely dangerous grey
zone. There's always that thin line that when you cross it, it's
risky, it's dangerous. "

Gariepy struggled to keep his composure when he described opening
Tessier's employment file yesterday and discovering he had dropped
out of civil engineering studies to become a police officer.

Gilles Lemieux, president of the Laval police union, said of
Tessier's death: "For us, this is really, really hard. But we will
work hard on morale."

Premier Jean Charest offered his condolences to the family of the
slain officer.

Exactly what happened on Rimouski Cres. yesterday is not clear. The
SQ began their probe by sequestering 12 officers who took part in the
Brossard operation, other than Tessier and Forbes, inside a Longueuil
police facility. The Surete then questioned them one by one.

Only after the questioning was completed were senior Laval officers
allowed access to do their own debriefing.

At a news conference late yesterday, the SQ said their investigation
will deal strictly with details related to the shooting.

"The aim of the SQ investigation is to establish the circumstances
and sequence of events that led to the death of Mr. Tessier," Dore said.

It will not be up to the provincial police force to determine whether
proper police procedure was followed during the operation, for example.

"Each police department is responsible for its own procedures and
ways of doing things. It's not the aim of the SQ to judge this," Dore said.

Quebec's workplace health and safety board has launched its own probe
into the shooting.

SQ investigators were meeting with witnesses and officers late
yesterday afternoon and awaiting the results of ballistic analysis
and an autopsy to determine details such as the number of shots
fired, who fired them and the location of the roughly dozen Laval
officers who were on site during the Rimouski Cres. operation, Dore said.

"At this point, it's impossible to draw any conclusions."

An SQ tactical group had assisted Laval police in the execution of
other search warrants on Laval territory that were part of the series
of raids carried out yesterday morning, but it was not involved in
the Brossard operation.

In December 2005, Constable Valerie Gignac was killed while
responding to a complaint concerning a man making too much noise in
his apartment.

Francois Pepin was charged with first-degree murder and remains in
custody pending court proceedings.

Gignac's death was "a wound that still hasn't healed," Gariepy said.

"And now we are faced with another death."

Messages of condolence: daniel.tessier@ville.laval.qc.ca

Information on Tessier's funeral arrangements will be posted on the
city of Laval website: www.ville.laval.qc.ca/