POLICE ACTION 'TERRIFIED' DRUGGIE

Two Fired VPD Officers Requested Hearing

Shannon Pritchard recalls being "terrified" the night she and a trio of
street-hardened drug dealers on Granville Street were arrested.

Pritchard, 31, a heroin and methamphetamine addict, said police came at her
and her three friends brandishing guns.

"I saw three cops coming across Granville Street with guns drawn," she told
a police complaint hearing yesterday.

The four were ordered to lie face down on the sidewalk, she said.

Asked by commission counsel Dana Urban to describe her feelings, Pritchard
replied: "Horrified. I just had a gun pointed at me. I'd never had a gun
pointed at me before." As she lay on the ground she noticed two "baggies of
crystal meth" next to her.

Her friend Barry Lawrie said they belonged to him, she testified.

Pritchard was loaded into a paddy wagon along with Lawrie, Grant Wilson and
Jason Desjardins.

She said she heard Wilson, in the compartment beside her, crying.

"He said he was sure he was going to be beaten badly," said Pritchard.

"I thought I was going to be beaten as well."

"Were you scared?" asked Urban.

"I was terrified," she replied.

Before taking the men to Stanley Park, where they were assaulted, the
police let Pritchard out near the Sylvia Hotel.

They told her to go home and stop hanging out with drug dealers.

Pritchard's testimony was fuzzy on many details about the morning of Jan.
14, 2003.

She admitted smoking crystal meth only 15 minutes before heading out to
look for Lawrie, some time after 4 a.m.

Pritchard is expected to continue her testimony today.

The hearing was called by the police complaint commissioner at the request
of two fired VPD constables -- Gabriel Kojima and Duncan Gemmell -- who are
fighting to be reinstated.

Outside the hearing, VPD Chief Jamie Graham came out in support of Const.
Troy Peters, the whistle-blower whose decision to go to the authorities led
to the suspensions of four officers and the firings of Kojima and Gemmell.

"He made a choice and he made a decision after what he saw, and I think he
should be commended," Graham said of his constable.