JUDGE BELIEVES WHISTLE-BLOWING COP'S STORY

Officers' Testimony Often Contradictory, Says Adjudicator

A rookie cop who was hailed as a hero for reporting the beatings of
three habitual troublemakers by other officers has been vindicated.

The adjudicator in the police complaint hearing into the Stanley Park
Six episode of Jan. 14, 2003, relied on the testimony of Vancouver
police Const. Troy Peters in his findings of fact made public yesterday.

Donald Clancy found the sworn testimony of the six officers who
pleaded guilty to three counts of assault in December 2003 lacked
credibility. It was the first chance for the six officers to speak
publicly on the incident.

Clancy's ruling was a blow to suspended constables Duncan Gemmell and
Gabriel Kojima, whose firings were recommended by Vancouver police
Chief Jamie Graham.

Kojima and Gemmell sought the unprecedented hearing as a last-ditch
effort to overturn Graham's recommendations.

When the hearing continues on Tuesday, lawyers for Gemmell and Kojima
will ask Clancy to find the punishment was too harsh and their clients
should keep their jobs. Kojima and Gemmell have been suspended without
pay since February 2004.

The other four officers -- constables Jim Kenney, Brandon Steele, Ray
Gardner and Chris Cronmiller -- received lesser degrees of punishment
and were allowed to keep their jobs.

After 29 days of testimony, Clancy was left to come to conclusions
between two completely different versions of the incident at Third
Beach parking lot at around 5 a.m.

His conclusions are independent of the admissions of fact put before
the provincial court judge in December 2003 and the disciplinary
defaults as found by Graham in January 2004.

"I do not accept the [six] officers' version of events," Clancy
said.

"The evidence of the six officers disciplined, without exception, was
self-serving and unsatisfactory. Memories ranged from poor to
non-existent and the recollection of events that the officers did have
was frequently contradictory."

The only saving grace for the officers was Clancy found that they were
following police policy on arresting people who were breaching -- or
appeared to be about to breach the peace -- when they packed Barry
Lawrie, Grant Wilson and Jason Desjardins into a police wagon on
Granville Street and took them to the park.

But all their actions following the arrests, culminating in the three
beatings, contravened the policy.

"As events unfolded, however, I find it is not an exaggeration to say
that a vigilante mob mentality developed."

Graham won't comment on the case until the proceedings are over, a
police spokesman said.