COURT HEARS OF NIGHTTIME RAID OF GROW-OP

REGINA -- Under the cover of darkness in a popular provincial park,
armed and camouflaged members of the RCMP's Emergency Response Team
(ERT) were poised to take down what they suspected was a massive
marijuana grow-op in the Qu'Appelle Valley.

Testimony Tuesday at the drug trial for Lawrence Hubert Agecoutay, 52,
Chester Fernand Girard, 59, Nelson Edward Northwood, 58, Jack Allan
Northwood, 55, Joseph Clayton Agecoutay, 47, and Robert Stanley
Agecoutay, 48, focused on the mechanics of the pre-dawn raid.

ERT leader Cpl. Kelly Painter said the tactical team gathered in the
overflow area at Echo Valley Provincial Park around 3 a.m. on Aug. 21,
2005, to prepare for the search on the Pasqua First Nation.

Four snipers went in first to act as "an advance set of eyes and
ears," Painter said. They watched the two target houses and a teepee
near six large greenhouses.

Then the remaining nine "assault" or entry members of the tactical
team, dressed in black gear and armed with pistols and a weapon
resembling a submachine gun, moved in on the houses shortly before
4:30 a.m. Court heard the officers opened first one barbed-wire gate
on the road, and were in the midst of opening a second, when a
spotlight -- believed to be coming from the direction of Robert
Agecoutay's house -- suddenly lit up the area.

"It was supposed to be a covert entry. . . . We realized now we'd been
compromised," Cpl. Brian Kelly testified. The signal word "lightning"
was given, meaning they were to move in quickly since the element of
surprise had been lost.

Witnesses said that just after the second fence, a number of engine
blocks lay across the roadway. The team drove in the ditch to enter
the property, with plans for each of two teams to take down both homes
simultaneously.

An ERT member used a metal pipe to break into the front door at Joseph
Agecoutay's house as officers yelled "police."

Painter said the sound of the door appeared to have awoken the
occupants.

"You don't mean the doorbell," quipped one of the six defence
lawyers.

Joseph Agecoutay, who was inside with two females and the children,
was arrested without incident, court heard.

Meanwhile, officers at the Robert Agecoutay house used a loudspeaker
to order the occupants out. Cpl. Scott Francis said an agitated Robert
Agecoutay repeatedly shouted back that, "we were on his land, and we
should leave."

He went back inside but exited a short time later with an unidentified
male and was arrested.

Officers by the teepee heard the shouting from the house. Const. Mike
Rosset, a sniper, said a male stuck his head out of the tent, went
back inside, then three men fled on foot. Rosset, who had a "thermal
eye" infra-red device and a night-vision scope on his firearm, thought
he saw one of the men carrying what appeared to be a long-barrelled
gun.

A search of the teepee subsequently turned up three firearms, at least
one of which was loaded, court heard. In cross-examination, several of
the officers agreed that in rural areas hunting rifles are quite common.

The trio who fled was tracked down nine hours later during a search
using police dogs and an airplane.

A frightened woman came running out of a house on the reserve and said
the suspects were inside with her children.

Francis said he tried to verbally persuade the men to come out -- to
no avail. Having lost radio contact with the remaining ERT member, the
three officers decided to move in rather than wait. Girard and two
other men -- one of whom is expected to testify for the Crown -- were
arrested.

In other testimony, Kelly, a former drug officer, was asked in
cross-examination about the botanical differences between hemp and
marijuana. He said he believed the plants he saw were marijuana -- but
noted they weren't yet ready for harvest because they hadn't reached
the bud stage.

"That's (the bud) the best stuff to smoke," he explained to the judge
and jury.