POLICE SEE WORST OF EASTSIDE IN UNDERCOVER STING

Vancouver police officers say they exposed themselves to the worst of
the Downtown Eastside when they went undercover as drug addicts or the
mentally ill.

During Operation Lucille, police targeted 20 hotels, pawn shops and
convenience stores that encouraged high-volume drug dealing, the sale
of stolen property, prostitution and usury -- and found themselves in
the middle of it.

"The officers involved have seen things that none of us will ever
see," Insp. Ken Frail said yesterday.

Female officers provided statements that he read aloud: "During a pawn
deal, the man I sold merchandise to asked me, 'How much for you?'"

Another woman said that while she was in a pawn shop the owner grabbed
her shirt, tried to lift it up, then pulled her toward him -- and then
laughed at the panic in her eyes.

A woman posing as a drug addict was propositioned by her dealers to
have sex for cocaine.

"He told me not only he wanted to have sex with me, but he told me
where he wanted to have it," the statement read. "He gave me a free
$20 rock of cocaine on the promise I would come back the next day to
have sex with him."

At the Marr Hotel on Powell Street, a police officer feigned a mental
disability and tried to get a place to sleep for the night. He
presented two welfare cheques, one for a room and another for a damage
deposit -- $550 in all -- but instead of getting a room, he got $150
back and the hotel took $400, the statement said. He was sent out on
the street with an invitation to come back next month.

The police could have laid hundreds of theft and drug charges after
what they saw, but criminal char-ges don't work against a systemic
problem that has links to organized crime, said Insp. John McKay.

The goal of Lucille, named for musician B.B. King's guitar, was to
gather evidence enough to shut the hotels and pawn shops down, with
the long-term goal of revitalizing the area.