SIU PROBES DEATH DURING DRUG RAID

The province's Special Investigations Unit is looking into how a
57-year-old man died of a heart attack during a Monday night drug
bust in Embrun, southeast of Ottawa.

Johannes Speek of Russell was one of three people arrested after the
OPP drug squad and the Casselman OPP detachment searched a St.
Augustin St. address at 7:45 p.m.

Inside, police found a half kilo of cocaine, half a gram of crack
cocaine, and a small amount of marijuana. The OPP estimates the total
street value of the drugs at $62,000.

The investigation turned into a rescue effort after Speek complained
of chest pains and dizziness. Police said officers at the scene
promptly called an ambulance. Speek was pronounced dead when he
reached Ottawa hospital at 9:20 p.m.

"It all happened very quickly," OPP spokeswoman Const. Diana Hampson
said yesterday. "The officers at the scene did what they could in the
circumstances that were in front of them."

An autopsy at the Ottawa Hospital General campus confirmed the cause
of death was a heart attack. Speek's family told the Sun yesterday
they were eager to learn more details.

"He was going to retire in two to three years, " said Jonathan Lee
Speek, the dead man's son. "He was just in the wrong place at the
wrong time."

He said his father was celebrating his birthday and went to his
daughter's home to have a beer. Five minutes after he arrived, the
police showed up and raided the home.

"He just wasn't my dad. He was my best friend," he said. Tragedy also
struck the family last year when Speek's nephew, Trevor, was shot at
his Hwy. 31 bachelor pad, just south of Greely. He was killed by
career criminal Danny Feher who is currently before the courts.

Investigators spent yesterday interviewing witnesses about Monday's
death. The SIU is required to probe any deaths that occur in police
custody.

Police still expect to lay charges in connection with the drug bust.