DEFIANT LAWYER UNDER FIRE AT INQUEST

Police association wants Pollock reprimanded for giving media evidence from
fatal shooting

THE WINNIPEG Police Association wants him reprimanded, but a lawyer
remained unrepentant yesterday after questions were raised that vice
officers were drinking just before Abe Hiebert was fatally shot two years
ago.

"Why am I being vilified?" Martin Pollock, lawyer for Hiebert's family,
asked outside the Law Courts Building.

Boyd Campbell, vice-president of the Winnipeg Police Association, said the
association is going to review Pollock's actions with an eye to launching a
complaint before the Law Society of Manitoba.

Inside the inquest, lawyers for the inquiry and police rebuked Pollock and
the Free Press for information that contributed to a front-page story
Saturday.

The story included a transcript of a telephone conversation that
prompted questions police may have been drinking at the vice office. The
story also appeared with an evidence photo of Det. Sgt. Leonard Small, the
man who killed Hiebert on a drug raid Dec. 16, 1997.

Officers have testified they were drinking on duty at a party hours before
the shooting. At issue was whether the party continued on at the vice
office hours later.

Small, a 20-year veteran of the force, gave a blood sample after the
shooting that showed he was clean.

Pollock denied any professional misconduct.

"The transcript will show I never made that accusation," Pollock said.

He said that at the time he gave information to the Free Press, he believed
he was acting properly by allowing access to inquest evidence. No
application had been made for any evidence to be heard in-camera, he said.

Questions about the possibility that officers drank alcohol at the vice
office are not out of line, or inquest counsel Doug Abra would not have
asked Sgt. Robert Freeman -- the highest-ranking drug-squad officer on duty
that night -- yesterday if vice officers were drinking at their office,
Pollock said.

"Why question him in the courtroom if he didn't think it was relevant?"
Pollock asked. "He obviously deems it relevant, so how can he say it is
inappropriate?"

Freeman denied yesterday that anyone drank alcohol at the vice office.

Freeman also testified he saw nothing wrong with officers drinking on duty,
as several have testified they did at a Canada Customs Christmas party five
hours before the shooting.

"It is appropriate to have a shot of liquor with your dinner at these
functions," Freeman said. "One shot of alcohol is not going to make all the
difference in the world."

Freeman was the supervising officer that night and one of eight officers
who carried out the raid on Hiebert's Dufferin Avenue house. Freeman
testified he attended the Customs party from about 5:30 p.m. to almost 7
p.m. He said he didn't drink, and didn't see any of his officers drinking.

Const. Murray Gwyllt, one of the officers at the raid, said he drew his gun
in Hiebert's backyard because he felt threatened by the drug dealer's dog.
His gun was also drawn inside Hiebert's house after the 60-year-old Hiebert
was shot.

Gwyllt testified the dog became enraged after Freeman pepper-sprayed it as
officers attempted to enter through Hiebert's back door. At the same time
as Gwyllt's gun was drawn, Small fired at Hiebert.

"I was about to point my gun at the dog to shoot it when I heard a shot. I
knew it wasn't my gun," Gwyllt recalled. "At that point, I forgot about the
dog completely and I ran for the (back door) landing."

Six new names were added to the witness list yesterday, including homicide
officers who investigated the shooting. Abra said he could also call Const.
David Black. A phone transcript published by the Free Press on Saturday
shows Black, stationed at the vice office, saying "Get rid of this shit . .
.. Just get rid of it right now, right now . . . shut the office, guys" as
it becomes apparent Hiebert has been shot.