SIX VPD OFFICERS SUSPENDED

Six members of the Vancouver Police Department were suspended yesterday for
allegedly beating up street kids dealing drugs.

The suspended officers, who range from relatively new recruits to one
officer with almost six years service, are accused of picking up teenage
drug dealers on Granville Mall.

The six are said to have taken the three young men in a police wagon to
Stanley Park where they were beaten badly enough for one to be taken to
hospital.

The police department's internal-affairs investigators have broken open the
lockers of the six accused officers and seized their uniforms, boots and
batons.

They will be sent for forensic analysis, apparently looking for DNA
evidence linking alleged victims to the officers.

The six suspended officers are still considered innocent until proven guilty.

While police were not commenting last night, The Province has learned a
deputy police chief called together the entire shift that the six men
worked on and announced the suspensions late yesterday afternoon.

"I can't remember anything like this ever happening before," one senior
Vancouver police officer said last night.

The police officer said this "is not the 1950s," a reference to legendary
stories of baseball-bat-waving police going after members of the notorious
Clark Park gang after dark.