YOU WANT TO SEARCH US?

Officer Might Strip Whole Newsroom If He Suspected A Reporter Of Dealing
Drugs

If police believed a Daily News reporter was dealing ecstasy or a
date-rape drug out of his Burnside office, they wouldn't hesitate to
strip-search his colleagues.

At a Nova Scotia Police Review Board hearing yesterday, Halifax Regional
Police Sgt. Robin McNeil testified he would strip-search crime reporter
Brendan Elliott or other reporters, if police had the same suspicions of
him as they did of organizers of a Halifax rave last year.

"Mr. Elliott and his friends would be searched," McNeil told board
chairman Brian Creighton.

Rave staffers' Aimee Kindervater and Aleasha Stanley have filed a
complaint against three Halifax Regional Police officers, claiming a
strip search before the Halifax rave at The Underground on Jan. 29,
2000, was excessive and unnecessary.

The reference to The Daily News surfaced when Creighton quizzed McNeil
on the issue of whether the search received more scrutiny because it was
a rave.

"I can understand easily going into a crack house and searching
everyone," Creighton said. "But (Stanley) was lawfully in a place where
she was working.

"I have a hard time seeing how that would be different from going into
The Daily News and searching everyone there, if you had information that
Brendan (Elliott) was dealing drugs."

But McNeil explained if pamphlets listing safe ways to do drugs were in
the newsroom, a strong smell of marijuana was wafting out of the
newspaper building, and a reporter handed over a bag of unidentifiable
pills when police arrived, full searches would be justified.

Add to the mix a suggestion one person was suspected to be the ecstasy
and date-rape drug supplier and his colleagues were distributors, McNeil
testified, strip-searches would definitely be warranted.

All the above factors were real considerations for police when they
raided the Halifax rave, McNeil said.

Kindervater and Stanley's lawyer Walter Thompson said it is important to
safeguard against giving too much power to the police.

"This is a pretty fundamental issue relating to the security of the
person and the power the state has to arbitrarily interfere with that
security," he said. "My sense is you cannot say to a group of people you
shall be searched."

Thompson said searches must be justified and assessed on an individual
basis.

"A suspicion is not justification," he said.