BIGGEST TABOO -- BOOZE, CIGARETTES OR PORNO DISCS?

Testimony at Hiebert shooting inquest suggests vice officers consider selves
to be special cases

IT WAS a classic example of Media Misdirection 101.

First, the Free Press publishes excerpts from a police tape transcript that
raise questions about the extent of drinking by vice officers on the night
drug dealer Abe Hiebert was shot dead, Dec. 16, 1997.

And two days later, the lawyer for seven of the eight police officers
questions my motives and ethics and suggests Hiebert family lawyer Martin
Pollock did something wrong when he loaned me exhibit photos and a copy of
the transcript.

After I asked for them, of course.

So what's wrong with the media publishing the photos and the transcript?

They're all exhibits at a public inquiry.

Which is why Hymie Weinstein, the lawyer for the shooter had no problem
giving me Exhibit 14 -- his client Det. Sgt. Lenny Small's CV -- when I also
asked for it that same Friday.

Pollock was also put on the defensive by inquest counsel Doug Abra, who
demanded to know if he had any evidence of vice officers drinking at their
office before the raid.

It was already known that most of the officers who went on the raid -- with
the notable exceptions of shooter Small and supervising officer Bob
Freeman -- had been drinking at a Customs Canada Christmas party four to
five hours before the raid.

But Friday, Pollock asked one of the officers if she had been drinking at
the office.

He set up that question by reading from a routinely taped telephone
conversation between the police communications centre and the vice office a
few blocks away on Princess Street.

Shortly after the comm. centre operator tells vice officer David Black that
the suspect has been shot in the shoulder, he is heard repeatedly telling
colleagues to "get rid of this shit."

Of course, Pollock has no evidence that there was drinking in the vice
office the night of the shooting.

If there had been, the bottle was long gone before homicide detectives
twigged to any on-duty drinking that night, which -- by the sounds of the
testimony -- they knew about shortly after they arrived to take charge of
the investigation that night.

Black is expected to testify Friday that it was cigarettes he wanted to get
rid of.

And possibly porno discs.

Yesterday, a source who has been at the vice office said they often watch
porn as part of their job. And they smoke openly, even though they're not
supposed to.

Mind you, the vice cops aren't supposed to drink on the job, either.

During the late 1980s, a police association lawyer once told a contract
arbitration hearing that drinking, extra-marital affairs and divorce were
epidemic on the department.

That doesn't mean cops drink in the office, of course.

Except maybe on holidays.

Former deputy police chief Paul Johnston once told me about bringing in a
bottle of booze and some Chinese food for the guys one New Year's Eve in the
1970s when he was a sergeant in charge.

Johnston caught hell when his supervisor found out. But, back then, at
least, he felt it was OK because his boys were inside working.

The problem is that, at its core, the police culture hasn't changed much
over the years, and -- as the inquest testimony suggests -- the vice
division thinks that it's a special case when it comes to drinking on the
job.

Which reminds me of what Insp. Bob Hall said last October, nearly two years
after the shooting, when he said that the officers who had been drinking at
the Christmas party were "only human" and wouldn't be disciplined.

Chief Jack Ewatski later said they were, in fact, disciplined, but the
public would have to wait until the inquest to find out what the penalty
was.

The so-called disciplines turned out to be reprimands for minor breaches of
the regulations that will be pulled from their files after a year if they
behave themselves.

Sounds like Hall had it right the first time. Chief Ewatski says he won't
comment on anything connected to the inquest while it's on, but the message
the executive sent with its phantom slap on the wrist suggests that drinking
on duty is not considered a big deal by the Winnipeg Police Service.

And if it's no big deal to be caught drinking, imagine the fear that's
struck in the hearts of door-kicking vice cops if they think they're about
to get caught smoking in the office.