POLICE FACE TOUGH DRUG TESTS

Police face random drug tests, including possible forced blood samples,
following a scathing report on the 1997 shooting of the Frenchman Roni Levi
on Bondi Beach by two officers.

The Police Integrity Commission (PIC) recommended that the tough testing
begin immediately after finding "compelling reasons" to broaden action over
officers using drugs.

The Police Minister, Mr Whelan, who just weeks ago said random tests were
not cost effective and that studies showed only a few officers were drug
users, was forced to back down and endorse the recommendations.

Although the report found no evidence that Senior Constable Anthony
Dilorenzo and Constable Rodney Podesta had been affected by drugs or
alcohol when they killed Mr Levi, the PIC commissioner said the case was a
powerful example of why random testing was needed.

"If both officers had been drug tested after the incident there would be no
doubts as to whether they were affected by drugs or alcohol at the time,"
said Judge Paul Urquhart, QC.

"Effective testing serves the interests of the officers in question, the
Police Service and, most importantly, the community."

Mr Levi, who was 33, died after being shot four times on June 28, 1997, by
the two officers in front of scores of onlookers. The coroner referred
their conduct for consideration of criminal charges but the Director of
Public Prosecutions declined to take the matter further.

The PIC report criticised the police investigation of the shooting for
"having no orderly or structured control" and said there was "a systemic
failure to comply with the then procedures" for such inquiries.

It concluded that Mr Podesta, who resigned in 1998 and was convicted of
being a cocaine supplier, was a regular cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy user
before he joined the police and had continued to use drugs as an officer
both before and after the shooting.

The PIC recommended that further drug charges be considered against Mr
Podesta and that three other people, including police, also be looked at
for criminal charges.

The report said that Mr Dilorenzo, sacked from the force in 1999, also used
cocaine.

The Police Commissioner, Mr Peter Ryan, asked if the report had ruled out
that the two officers were affected by drugs at the time of the shooting,
said he could not be confident of anything that had happened that day at
Bondi. "The inquiry failed to ascertain either way ..."

Under the new random testing regime, which Mr Whelan said would begin in
September, officers will have to give a hair or urine sample, and possibly
blood. Mr Ryan said he expected 600 random tests would be done in the first
year.

Mr Whelan said yesterday that because random blood tests were invasive and
costly, they would probably not be approved.

But there was "a strong case" for officers to be forced to give blood
samples after shootings or pursuits involving death or injury. This should
also happen in targeted tests, where officers have been identified as drug
suspects by Internal Affairs.

At present, along with the targeted tests, there is random alcohol testing
and mandatory drug and alcohol tests of officers after critical incidents.

Laws enabling police to conduct broader random tests have been in place
since 1997 but, according to the PIC report, have never been used because
of opposition from the police union.

Mr Levi's widow, Ms Melinda Dundas, said she was overwhelmed by the extent
of Mr Podesta's drug taking and would always feel that "effective drug
screening ... might have prevented" her husband's death.

"Anyone with the right to carry a gun, and kill someone in the course of
their duty, should of course have to undergo a blood test," Ms Dundas said.
"It must be done to ensure they are beyond suspicion."