SUSPECT'S LEG SHOT ACCIDENTALLY: COP

NEWMARKET -- Shooting an alleged drug dealer in the leg was an
accident, a York Regional Police officer told a court yesterday.

Sgt. Robert Dettman described how he was doing surveillance as part of
a vice squad team on April 5, 2006, that was executing a "buy and
bust" in Markham when he saw a man fitting the suspect's description
running up a residential street towards him.

Dettman said he got out of his van on Stirling Cres. and drew his
police-issued firearm and ordered the man to raise his hands and drop
to the ground.

Van Slowly Rolled

The man slowed to a walk but didn't do as instructed.

But before anything more could happen, the veteran officer said he
noticed his van slowly rolling down the street towards a driveway.

His "instinct" was to holster his gun and stop the van before it did
any damage but as he lowered his 9mm Glock it discharged, striking
Kevin Douglas in the left thigh, Dettman said before Superior Court
Justice Ted Minden.

Douglas, 23, has pleaded not guilty to trafficking an eighth of an
ounce of cocaine but he continues to suffer the consequences of the
wound on his inner left thigh, defence counsel Sue von Achten said
outside of court.

Dettman said on the witness stand that shooting Douglas was "a very
traumatic experience" for him.

After being shot, Dettman said Douglas remained standing and hollering
in anguish.

'Screaming'

"He was screaming he had been shot and he asked why I had shot him,"
Dettman testified. The officer's notes indicate he told Douglas it was
an accident.

Dettman's colleague Det.-Const. Thai Truong told the court he had
called a cellphone number registered to Ryan Phillips at the 99
Stirling Cres. address Douglas was allegedly seen leaving shortly
before the shooting.

Truong and the man he thought was Phillips met in a nearby park where
he exchanged $200 for an eight-ball of coke. He identified Douglas as
the same man who sold him the drugs.

The trial continues tomorrow.