ATTACKER HAD 'OFF THE SCALE' STRENGTH

Officers Faced 'Flurry Of Punches,' Fatality Inquiry Told

EDMONTON - One of three police officers who used kicks, punches and a baton
to subdue a cocaine addict minutes before he died says the man showed "off
the scale" strength.

"That's the only way to describe it ... a donnybrook is exactly what
happened there," Const. Richard Abbott testified Wednesday at a fatality
inquiry looking into the death of Doug Oliver.

Toxicology tests later showed the 37-year-old Kelowna, B.C., man had
near-lethal amounts of cocaine in his body.

The medical examiner concluded he died from excited delirium, a rare
condition affecting psychiatric patients and cocaine users who become so
agitated that an overpowering adrenaline rush stops their heart.

Abbott and his partner were called to the Grand Hotel, at 10266 103rd St.,
on Feb. 5, 2003, to evict Oliver from his second-floor room, where staff
suspected someone was buying or selling drugs.

When he opened the suite door around 8:30 a.m., Abbott saw Oliver standing
with a screwdriver in his hand, twitchy and unresponsive to commands.

Oliver finally put down the screwdriver as ordered, blurting out that there
were warrants for his arrest.

He knocked away Abbott's hand as the officer tried to put on handcuffs.
Abbott grabbed one arm, his partner, Const. Ian Brooks, grabbed the other,
but Oliver pulled the men down.

Abbott twice hit Oliver on the head with his palm as hard as he could and
nothing happened.

"There was a flurry of punches, knees and kicks. I couldn't get close to
him -- every time I got near to him I got hit," he said.

"This fight that ensued with Mr. Oliver, it's off the scale with the
strength and intensity and the violence."

Whacking Oliver's arms and shoulders with a baton didn't make a difference,
even a blow that skipped up and cracked his head so hard Abbott thought
he'd be knocked unconscious.

After 10 minutes of grappling, Abbott was exhausted. Oliver grabbed his
baton and tried to pull it away.

"I decided that if he got my baton I was going to have to shoot him,
because I had no strength left."

Const. Kyle Deeg, who arrived to help his two colleagues partway through
the fight, described the scene as "mayhem."

With 14 years of judo training, he kicked Oliver four times as hard as he
could and the other man didn't even flinch, he testified.

"I have never seen that type of strength before."

The officers eventually got Oliver face down on the floor, hands cuffed
behind his back.

Deeg and Brooks went to wash off the blood which had been spattered on
them, Abbott said.

Within minutes Oliver's breathing became laboured. They called for an
ambulance, but there was nothing emergency medical services could do.

"I heard him take a last breath ... and EMS showed up almost
simultaneously," Abbott said.

Oliver's mother, Laverne, who attended the hearing with his sister Tina,
questioned why police needed to use this level of violence.

"It just seems to me the more Doug was provoked, the harder he would
fight," she told Deeg.

"I'm just really, really wondering why so many excessive, blunt hits had to
be done. Why did he take 48 blows to his body and some to his head?"

Shawn Beaver, lawyer for the three officers, said there's evidence Oliver
had attacked his former girlfriend with a knife while stoned on cocaine and
thought the devil was after him.