LESSONS OF DRUG RAID MUST BE LEARNED

The grief and consternation of Daniel Tessier's family and of his
fellow officers were obvious and understandable on Friday, after the
acquittal of the man charged in his death. The loss of a seasoned
police officer in the line of duty brings home to us all the terrible
dangers that law-enforcement officers run almost routinely.

But beyond grief and frustration, there are lessons to be learned
from this botched drug raid. The problems that led to this tragedy
need to be the object of careful study by the Laval police department
and police across Quebec.

Laval police chief Jean-Pierre Gariepy seems to be taking the right
attitude to the acquittal of Basil Parasiris, saying that he would
ask the Quebec minister of public security for far-reaching changes
in the drafting of search warrants, and in the training given to
police officers about how to undertake surprise raids.

Laval police conducted the raid in the belief that Parasiris was
involved in a local drug ring. Unfortunately, as Superior Court
Justice Guy Cournoyer ruled, there was little proof to back this
belief, certainly not enough for a search warrant to be executed in a
surprise, pre-dawn raid. Such a raid should be carried out only in an
emergency.

Parasiris was wakened by his wife screaming shortly after 5 a.m. on
March 2, 2007. Seeing a shadow at the doorway to his bedroom,
Parasiris picked up one of four loaded guns he kept in his bedroom
and fired off at least two shots. He said he believed his home had
been invaded.

In a way, it had been. Nine police officers forced Parasiris's front
door open with a battering ram. Five officers sprinted up the stairs
to the bedrooms. Within less than a minute, Tessier lay dying,
Parasiris's wife was shot through the arm, a second police officer
was hit by a bullet from Parasiris's gun and Parasiris's two children
were traumatized.

Both sides seem to have panicked. It was an inevitable reaction on
the part of the Parasiris family. But for the police to have fired
off so many rounds suggests a lack of training in general and of
planning for this raid in particular.

A search warrant for "dynamic entry" should not, on the evidence,
have been issued in this case. Police could have arrested Parasiris
under calmer circumstances.

A man is dead as a result of an apparently ill-planned raid. Only
vigorous corrective action by the authorities can add anything
positive to this tragic series of mistakes.