LAWYER WANTS POLICE DOCUMENTS ON FATAL APARTMENT RAID

EDMONTON - Police were negligent and deliberately misused force during a
fatal apartment raid to look for suspects in the big Project Kachou
drug-gang case, lawyer Tom Engel suggested Wednesday in court.

Adam Miller, 22, and Huu Pham, 15, died Sept. 24, 1999, when they fell off
a fourth-floor balcony, after officers using stun grenades burst into the
suite where they were staying.

A fatality inquiry into the incident at 12925 65th St. is to start Dec. 8.

The inquiry was put off for years over concerns it might produce evidence
that would jeopardize the fairness of criminal trials for about 35 people
arrested in the huge case.

Last February, Alberta Justice concluded the drug-gang trials were so
delayed that the inquiry should go ahead.

On Wednesday, Engel asked provincial court Judge Leo Wenden to add another
21 witnesses to the two-week hearing and requested copies of internal
police investigations into complaints about the men's deaths.

"The position of the Miller family is they died as the result of poor
planning in terms of execution of the raid and excess use of force during
the raid," he said in court. "The whole plan was to use excessive force."

Engel said he expects to show officers were negligent in carrying out their
duties and people in the apartment were unlawfully assaulted.

"There's not only negligence, but there's deliberate misuse of force."

Engel warned that Wenden won't see the whole picture if he looks only at
the fall from the balcony.

However, the judge said he's forbidden from making findings of legal
responsibility at fatality inquiries, which are limited to determining how
someone died and what steps could be taken to prevent similar deaths in the
future.

Neil Boyle, one of two provincial government lawyers handling the inquiry,
said 18 witnesses are scheduled to testify, including officers at the
scene, ambulance workers and witness who was in the suite, he said.

The internal investigations didn't find any misconduct or lead to any
charges and they aren't relevant to the inquiry, he said.

Although an issue has been raised that the two men were strip-searched at
the scene, medical people are expected to indicate there was no chance of
saving their lives, Boyle said.

He said the original fatality inquiry was put on hold five days before
Miller's family went to court.

Wenden will decide later whether Engel should receive the police reports.