COP SAYS THEY HAD TO BE 'CREATIVE'

Disciplined Officer Says He And Five Others Were Told, 'Go Out There And Care'

The battle plan for police fighting to save a lively section of Granville
Street from the control of crack addicts and violent drug dealers called
for imagination, says one of the six Vancouver officers punished for
assaulting three drug dealers in Stanley Park two years ago.

"Sometimes you have to be creative to get the job done," Const. Brandon
Steele told a police complaint commission hearing into the firings of two
of the constables.

"We were encouraged to take ownership of our community," said Steele, who
admitted to the assault.

"We cared about the people and the merchants. We constantly got merchants
asking us why we didn't do anything . . . Everyone acknowledged that the
problem was getting worse at Davie and Granville and no one wanted it to go
the same way as Main and Hastings."

Steele and five other constables were a team whose area included the
Granville Mall and the West End. On the night of Jan. 13, 2003, they were
joined by a fresh recruit, Const. Troy Peters, working his third or fourth
shift as a police officer.

It was Peters who blew the whistle on six fellow officers for assaulting
Grant Wilson, Barry Lawrie and Jason Desjardins, a trio of violent drug
dealers who have more than 100 criminal convictions between them.

Peters, scheduled to testify before adjudicator Donald Clancy this week,
has said the assaults were vicious, so bad that Chief Jamie Graham decided
to suspend four of the six and fire the other two -- Duncan Gemmell and
Gabriel Kojima.

"We were told, 'Don't be a fence-sitter. Go out there and care,'" Steele
testified Friday. "We weren't going to lose control of Granville Street."

On the night in question, the officers escorted Wilson, Lawrie and
Desjardins to the Third Beach parking lot in Stanley Park to get them away
from Granville and Helmcken streets, where they were causing a commotion
over a cab fare.

In his three days of testimony, Steele described a relatively harmless
scuffle between five officers and each of the victims -- unlike the
merciless beatings Peters described.

One issue before the adjudicator is the extent of the injuries suffered by
the three victims.

Steele, an avid weightlifter, left little doubt in anyone's mind about the
level of harm he could inflict with a collapsible baton if he tried.

Asked by Kojima's lawyer, David Crossin, to demonstrate his baton
technique, Steele took off his suit jacket, walked up to a stack of sturdy
cardboard boxes and delivered an ear-splitting blow to the boxes, ripping
one open.

He also described a sombre scene at a debriefing at police headquarters
after the officers' shift.

The team collectively decided to not mention of the assaults in their
occurrence report. It fell to Gemmell and his partner, Const. Ray Gardner,
to write the bogus report.

Gemmell, who had less seniority than Gardner, was author -- which may have
contributed to his being fired rather than suspended.

If the adjudicator finds the entire team collectively fudged the report, he
may rule the punishment meted out to Gemmell was too harsh and reinstate him.

CONST. BRANDON STEELE

- - Suspended for 20 days without pay in 2004, demoted two ranks, banned from
overtime work for two years, partnered with senior officer for a year
before returning to regular duties.

- - Cost of above: $20,000 to $50,000 in lost pay.

- - Qualified as acting sergeant two months ago, has three shifts as acting
sergeant under his belt.

- - Working on a master's degree in forensic psychology.

- - Says since Stanley Park incident, he's changed, has "a new appreciation
for this line of work."