JURY RECOMMENDS EDUCATION IN DRUG AWARENESS FOR POLICE

Peninsula Man Suffering From Cocaine Psychosis Arrested, Died In Hospital

Jeff Bell Times Colonist

A coroner's jury recommended Thursday that drug use awareness be part of
in-house, ongoing education for all law enforcement officers and
paramedics, after a coroner's inquest into the November 2003 death of
Lyndon Charles Valan.

Valan, 32, died at Saanich Peninsula Hospital after experiencing symptoms
of cocaine-associated agitated delirium, more commonly referred to as
"cocaine psychosis."

Toxicologist Dr. Stuart Huskin said during the inquest that the incidence
of death from such conditions appears to be on the increase in B.C.

The five jurors recommended the education so that drug induced psychosis
symptoms would be better understood and recognized.

The two-day coroner's inquest into Valan's death was held as a matter of
policy because he had been in police custody before being taken to the
hospital.

Coroner Beth Larcombe opened the inquest by describing it as a fact-finding
effort that does not seek to judge guilt or innocence.

The jury heard Thursday that Valan had called 911 himself and asked for the
police on the night he died, a request that was likely due to paranoia
induced by his condition.

But when the Sidney/North Saanich RCMP arrived he would not believe they
were real officers.

Before the police came, Valan had been acting strangely and turning over
furniture looking for a non-existent intruder, his niece Krista Watson
testified.

"He was panting and sweating and running around the house."

Both she and her grandmother were in the house at the time, but she was not
fearful of her uncle, Watson said. Her fear was that he was going to harm
himself, she said.

Watson said her uncle repeatedly asked the police for identification but
none was shown.

In earlier testimony, Sidney/North Saanich RCMP Const. Kelly McKinnon said
their identity was apparent because officers were in full uniform and
police vehicles were in plain view, and added that tense situations do not
often afford a chance to produce a badge.

The jury also recommended that all law enforcement officers be required to
have picture identification and badge in an easily accessible or visible
place, and that a policy be implemented making it mandatory for all
officers to produce identification when requested.

Const. Jason Kerr of the RCMP Island District Major Crime Unit testified
that showing identification would not have made a difference to the incident.

Kerr, who looked into Valan's death as required by RCMP policy, said he has
been involved in similar situations himself.

"When a person gets into a state such as (Valan) was in ... it's very
difficult to reason with them, in my experience."

After Watson and her grandmother -- Valan's mother -- had left the house,
Valan eventually emerged carrying a kitchen knife and a box cutter. He
dropped them when told to by police and was handcuffed, but then began to
resist and had to be subdued by four officers.

After calming down, he stopped breathing, and an ambulance arrived to take
him to Saanich Peninsula Hospital's emergency ward.

Valan's death was the latest in a series of tragedies in his family going
back to 1994, when his sister, Laurel, was killed in a single-vehicle
accident in Duncan.

Another sister, Lavinia, was killed in 1997 on the Patricia Bay Highway
when she was a passenger in a car that ran a red light.