COPS 'LIONS IN THE JUNGLE'

Testimony: Officer Says They Were Told To Reclaim Granville

It was shaping up as a quiet night for Duncan Gemmell and Ray Gardner as
the two constables tucked in to their customary bowl of soup at the Chateau
Granville an hour before going off shift on Jan. 14, 2003.

As Gemmell worked on reports on a laptop computer, Gardner went to the
restaurant window looking down on the corner of Granville and Helmcken
streets and saw Grant Wilson in a dispute with his drug-dealing cronies.

So, rather than finish their meal, Gemmell and Gardner tore out of the
restaurant to arrest Wilson, who had been sent out of the area in a paddy
wagon an hour earlier for breaching the peace and told not to come back.

"We were encouraged to take ownership of Granville Street and other problem
areas," Gardner, the third member of the Stanley Park Six to testify at a
police complaint hearing, said Friday.

Six officers have pleaded guilty to assaulting three drug dealers in
Stanley Park. Four were handed severe suspensions and demoted. Chief Jamie
Graham has recommended the other two -- Gabriel Kojima and Gemmell -- be
fired. Kojima and Gemmell are fighting to have their dismissal
recommendations overturned at the unprecedented hearing by adjudicator
Donald Clancy.

Gardner testified Friday: "We were instructed to let [drug dealers] know we
will not retreat from the lawlessness there."

"Were you ever taught by sergeants and inspectors to intimidate people?"
asked David Butcher, the lawyer for Gemmell.

"Yes," replied Gardner. "It's just part of the job for a certain part of
society that doesn't respect the law.

"You tell them, 'The next time we come by, there'll be arrests.'

"You let them know we are the lions in the jungle. There has to be a
certain fear of police," Gardner said, adding that fear and respect
enhances the officers' safety as they stroll the Granville beat.

Butcher asked Gardner to run through the seniority of the six officers,
after establishing that seniority among officers forms a virtual chain of
command in the police force. The higher the badge number, the lower the
officer stands in pecking order.

Gemmell was fifth, one place behind Kojima, Gardner said.

The hearing -- the first time any officer has used the complaint procedure
in the 1998 Police Act -- will enter its fourth week when it resumes Tuesday.