HYDRO'S SUSPICIONS PROMPTED POLICE RAID

Vancouver police Detective Scott Driemel said Friday a raid on a Vancouver
house that turned out to be wrong was prompted by a report from B.C. Hydro.

"They (Hydro) believed that there was a 'theft of electricity' coming from
that address and reported it to police. Whenever there's theft of
electricity, it's almost always because of a (marijuana) grow operation. We
couldn't take the chance that it wasn't a grow-op."

Five people, including 72-year-old Trong Nien Dao, were handcuffed on
Wednesday when police rushed into the house in the 5600-block of Inverness.

While the Dao family stood on the lawn, the police conducted a quick search
of the house. The search warrant was for "theft of electricity," but they
were searching for signs of a marijuana-growing operation.

They found none, and left.

However, the family was furious with the raid, saying it was humiliating
and prompted by discrimination.

Driemel said Friday that Hydro told police the family had paid only $15 in
a two-month period, leading them to believe the electricity meter had been
tampered with.

After the raid, Hydro checked the meter and discovered that someone had
fiddled with it. The Dao family said they did nothing to the meter, and
assumed nothing was wrong when they rented the house in September 2000.

Driemel said only one member of the family was handcuffed and that police
apologized to the family.

He said that if the Daos have a complaint, they can go to the office of the
Vancouver police complaint commisioner or the internal investigation section.