FAMILIES TO SUE POLICE AFTER MISTAKEN RAID

No Drugs Found

Three Northern Ontario families are planning legal action against the
Ontario Provincial Police after their homes were raided by dozens of
gun-toting drug officers who relied on a spurious tip from an informant
that the families were growing hydroponic marijuana.

Doors were kicked in and at one farm an infirm, elderly woman was so
terrified by the sight of the officers rushing into her home in Kipling,
Ont., near North Bay, she began having chest pains and had to be rushed
to hospital.

"I heard this terrible crash at the door and I thought to myself, holy
s--- did a moose or a deer run into the house?" recalled Shirley
Romberg, 63, in an interview.

Ms. Romberg said officers burst into her house early on the morning of
March 6, while she was in her nightgown and her common-law husband, Ron
Lackey, was shaving. The officers ordered the couple to get on the
ground.

"I thought I was dead, because I didn't know who they were," she said,
her voice trembling as she remembered the incident. "I thought they came
to kill us."

The drug squad officers, accompanied by members of the OPP's Emergency
Response Team, had already stormed through her son Bernie's house on the
same property and had him handcuffed, lying face-down on the floor.

"They told me I was under arrest for growing hydroponic marijuana ...
I've never done anything like that in my life," Mr. Romberg said.

Two neighbouring farms in Kipling were also raided that morning, the
final phase of a two-month investigation by the OPP's Northwest Drug
Section.

Bob Hughey, the Rombergs' neighbour, had just dropped his wife at work
and was dozing off, when the officers came pouring in. "I couldn't
understand what they were doing ... why they were making all this
noise," Mr. Hughey said.

Murray Anderson and his wife, Gisele Henderson, were at work when police
searched their farm. Their children came home from school that afternoon
to find the front door off its hinges and a search warrant taped to a
wall.

No drugs were found in any of the homes nor were any charges laid.

Detective Staff Sergeant Tim Millar, of the OPP's Northeast Drug
Section, called the incident an "honest mistake." He apologized to all
three families in person several days later.

"In terms of this investigation, I have absolutely no problems with it
... the officers followed the rules to a 'T,' " Det. Staff Sgt. Millar
said.

When the officers received the information, he said, they went through
standard procedures, including flying over the houses in an aircraft
with an infrared scanner to look for unnatural heat sources.

They pulled hydro bills to see if they were unusually high -- the
telltale sign of a hydroponic growing operation -- and did surveillance
on the homes, looking for anything out of the ordinary, he said.

But it was the informant's tip that was key in obtaining the search
warrants. "The information wasn't right ... You could say we were
duped," Det. Staff Sgt. Millar said.

However, that explanation and the apology were not enough for the
families. They have contacted a lawyer, who is reviewing the incidents.
All three said they would like to sue the OPP.

"In the community here, everybody knows everybody, and if you're raided
everybody thinks the worst," Mr. Anderson said.

"The first things people say to me is 'Anderson what are you growing out
there?' and that's not a name I want."