BEATING VICTIM WAS 'REALLY SCARED'

Police Complaint: Barry Lawrie Says He Was Too Frightened To Go To The Hospital

A man who was assaulted by a group of Vancouver police officers in Stanley
Park two years ago broke down on the witness stand as he recalled the beatings.

During the police complaint commission hearing into the affair on Friday,
Barry Lawrie testified he was kicked in the middle of the back by an
officer after being ordered to lie on the sidewalk outside an all-night
convenience store in the 1100-block Granville Street.

Lawrie, 36, has a criminal record that includes 28 convictions for such
crimes as robbery, break-ins, possession of stolen property, making
threats, fraud, trafficking drugs, criminal harassment, stealing a car and
failing to comply with a court order.

He denies having a physical confrontation with well-known Granville Street
drug dealer Grant Wilson inside Khan's Market shortly before 5 a.m. on Jan.
14, 2003, admitting only that they were speaking loudly to each other.

"Grant owed me $100," Lawrie testified. "I was tired of chasing him around
for the money."

Lawrie said he thought two police officers he saw running toward them from
the other side of Granville Street were intent on arresting Wilson, who had
just stepped out of a cab without paying.

Wilson had been taken out of the Granville area earlier that morning by
police, dropped off at Main and Hastings streets, and told not to come back
to Granville Street.

The police had Lawrie, Shannon Pritchard, Wilson and Jason Desjardins
laying on the sidewalk when a paddy wagon arrived.

"I said, 'Am I going to jail?' They said 'No, you're going for a ride,'"
Lawrie testified.

Laughing and chuckling one moment, weeping the next, Lawrie could not
provide much help in identifying the officer he said kicked him, other than
he had a police hat on and spoke with an English accent.

They arrived at Third Beach parking lot in Stanley Park and Lawrie was the
first one taken out of the wagon.

Although he said he was afraid, he admitted he passed out in the wagon
before arriving at the parking lot.

"It was really dark -- black," he said of the scene at the parking lot,
before an officer shone his flashlight in Lawrie's eyes, temporarily
blinding him, he said.

"Someone grabbed me and the lights went off."

He said the officers were in a sort of a circle and started pushing him
around the circle.

"I got hit in the mouth and I fell down," he said. "They kicked me and
stomped me," he said. "I asked them not to kick my leg. I had [knee
ligament] surgery on it a couple years ago, so they kicked me more."

Lawrie said one officer threatened to "paralyze" him, he said before being
overcome with emotion.

Lawrie testified he went to a medical clinic the next day for attention to
his injuries, but under cross-examination he admitted he gave the clinic a
false name, which he couldn't recall.

"I can't remember which name I used," he said. "I was afraid to go to a
hospital because there's always cops there.

"I use a lot of drugs."

At one point, Lawrie was asked by commission lawyer Dana Urban why he
didn't lodge a complaint with the Vancouver police about his beating.

"Are you serious?" Lawrie asked.

"Yes," replied Urban.

"I was really scared," Lawrie answered.

His cross-examination is expected to continue tomorrow, when the hearing
resumes.

The hearing, which fired Vancouver constables Gabriel Kojima and Duncan
Gemmell are using to try to win reinstatement, is scheduled to last another
two weeks.

It is not known when adjudicator Donald Clancy, a retired B.C. Supreme
Court judge, will render his ruling.