STEPSON OF POLICE CHIEF INVESTIGATED

Two Officers Accused of Lying

TWO Winnipeg police officers are under investigation for allegedly
lying under oath in a recent drug case, police and legal sources say.

Sources also said one of the two officers under investigation is
Police Chief Jack Ewatski's stepson, who joined the force in May 2002.
Ewatski, who announced his retirement Wednesday, has two stepsons on
the force.

The investigation, being handled by the professional standards unit,
started late last year after a provincial court judge dismissed
cocaine charges against two men arrested July 16, 2005, at a downtown
hotel.

A source said the allegation against the officers is that they
testified they had not been in the hotel room before they got a search
warrant from a magistrate.

However, hotel staff say the two officers were inside the suite
without the warrant, according to the source.

The warrant let the officers seize a small quantity of cash and crack
cocaine, according to a report, but because of the discrepancy in the
evidence, the judge hearing the matter stayed the charges. The outcome
prompted the internal investigation. In a media report Wednesday,
Ewatski said the internal investigation involving his stepson had no
impact on his decision to retire. He declined a Free Press interview
request.

A second source also told the Free Press the professional standards
unit investigation is broad and involves looking at other recent cases
in which the officers were involved.

Lorne Schinkel, president of the Winnipeg Police Association, said
yesterday he didn't want to comment on an ongoing matter.

"It's an allegation, and we will support our members just as we've
done in the past," he said.

There has been a handful of botched drug prosecutions in recent years
in which judges have found police were in violation of the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms and dismissed what appeared to be strong cases
against the accused.

The cases have usually involved illegal searches and seizures by
overzealous officers who failed to get the proper legal authority --
such as a warrant -- to recover the evidence.

However, none of those cases has resulted in Winnipeg police taking
additional action against their members.

It is rare, but not unheard of, for Canadian police officers to come
under scrutiny for their conduct in investigations. In Toronto, 13
officers were accused of perjury and theft in a scandal that resulted
in at least 115 court cases being thrown out of court.

Closer to home, two Winnipeg police officers were investigated for
perjury in 1993 after their testimony resulted in hate charges being
dropped against three local Ku Klux Klan members.

The case involved an officer suddenly admitting under oath she must
have used police surveillance tapes of seven of 62 conversations with
a KKK leader to assist her in writing her notes during an earlier
undercover investigation.

Her admission came after the officer insisted through two days of
questioning by defence counsel that she had relied solely on her
memory to make her notes.

The decision not to charge the officers in that case was made by the
Crown after a review by Alberta prosecutors.