DRUG COP IN RAID SHOT BY MEMBER OF EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM

Plainclothes Officer Remains In Hospital After Taking Bullet In Abdomen

New Westminster -- A police officer injured in a drug raid Thursday
night was shot by a member of the Municipal Integrated Emergency Response Team.

The team, made up of officers from four Lower Mainland municipal
police forces, was called in to assist the plainclothes officer and
his partner in executing a search warrant on two apartment units on
Fourth Avenue, New Westminster police Staff-Sgt. Casey Dehaas said Friday.

Dehaas said names of the victim and the officer who shot him, and the
municipality the ERT officer is from, are being withheld for the time being.

He said the officer whose weapon discharged has been placed on
administrative leave while the RCMP's Integrated Homicide
Investigation Team -- which is contracted to investigate all police
shootings in the Lower Mainland -- reviews the incident.

But he confirmed that the officer is a member of the MIERT, which is
made up of about 20 officers from New Westminster, Delta, Port Moody
and Abbotsford municipal forces. It is not part of the RCMP or
Vancouver Police emergency response teams.

The officer who was shot is a member of the New Westminster police
drug section and was in plain clothes. The round from the MIERT
officer's weapon was deflected by his body armour and hit him in the
abdomen. Dehaas said he did not know if the officer was shot with a
handgun or another type of weapon.

The injured officer suffered severe bruising and may have broken or
cracked ribs. He remains in Royal Columbian Hospital for observation
and may be discharged in a day or two, he said.

Dehaas said a team of between four and six MIERT officers was
involved in the drug raid. Their job was to break down the door and
secure the apartment, allowing the drug squad officers to execute a
search warrant.

Two apartments in the dilapidated, two-storey apartment building at
727 Fourth Ave. in New Westminster were targeted in the search
warrant. Police had information that drug dealing was either being
conducted out of the apartments, or it was where drug-dealers were
staying, Dehaas said.

However, he characterized the type of crime as "street-level" dealing
and not a large-scale drug operation.

Seven people from the two units were arrested and released without
charge. Dehaas said he didn't know if police found any evidence of
drugs or weapons, but an investigation is under way and charges may be laid.