POLICE DOWNPLAY ASSAULTS

Officer Tells Hearing That Victim Tripped Getting Out Of Van

A punch here, a shove there, a delicate nudge with a foot to the shoulder.

A description of the assaults administered by a team of Vancouver police
officers on a trio of drug dealers in Stanley Park sounded more like a
molehill than a mountain of hurt when related by one of the officers involved.

In his testimony at an unprecedented public hearing into the firings last
year of two members of the Stanley Park Six, Const. Brandon Steele admitted
yesterday to shoving one of the victims only once and punching another man
in the stomach.

All six constables pleaded guilty to assault.

Steele, like three others, was suspended 20 days and demoted.

Two night-shift mates of his who patrolled Granville Mall -- Gabriel Kojima
and Duncan Gemmell -- are fighting to have adjudicator Donald Clancy
overturn their dismissals from the Vancouver Police Department.

It was "extremely dark" at the Third Beach parking lot around 5 a.m. on
Jan. 14, 2003, Steele said, when he arrived in his paddy wagon with the
three Granville Mall troublemakers inside.

The officers were planning to let Grant Wilson, Barry Lawrie and Jason
Desjardins out at a location far from the mall and hope they cooled off as
they walked home, in accordance with a VPD breach-of-the-peace policy.

Lawrie and Desjardins were let out of the paddy wagon and each was given a
lecture about dealing drugs on the mall.

Neither lecture lasted more than a minute, said Steele.

He said Lawrie was poked in the chest and shoved. Desjardins was punched
once, shoved once and possibly kneed, said the witness.

Wilson, known as a street bully who often sold fake crack cocaine, was let
out last.

Steele said Wilson misjudged the step getting out of the back of the wagon
and stumbled on to the pavement.

"I did not see or hear his head contact the pavement," said Steele, adding
Wilson bounced up quickly. "He came up extremely close to Const. Chris
Cronmiller."

Steele said Cronmiller pushed Wilson backward into him.

"I punched [Wilson] in the stomach," he said. "He fell to the ground a
second time. . . . I'm not sure it was as a result of my punch."

Steele said another officer, possibly Gemmell, gave Wilson a second punch
on the upper torso.

While Wilson lay "turtled' on the pavement, "[Kojima] nudged him with the
outside of his foot" and told him to get up, said Steele.

"Nudged?" asked commission counsel Dana Urban.

"Nudged," replied Steele emphatically.

He said when Wilson left after the brief scuffle, he had blood trickling
down his forehead, which Steele suspected was from his fall getting out of
the wagon.

Outside the hearing room, the lawyer for the three victims scoffed at
Steele's story.

"I think there was definitely a lynch-mob mentality in this park," said
Phil Rankin, whose clients have sworn they were viciously beaten, kicked
and struck with batons.

"What we're hearing right now is the unrepentant convict helping his buddies."

Whistle-blower Const. Troy Peters is expected to testify today.