'ALL I HEARD WAS ONE POP, THEN IT WAS SILENT'

Shooting unfolded like scene from horrible movie

AS HE LEANED against a wall, stunned and bleeding, a Winnipeg police
vice detective watched the shooting of a suspected drug dealer unfold
like frames in a horrible movie.

Testifying yesterday during the second day of an inquest into the
shooting death of 60-year-old Abe Hiebert in December 1997, Det. Sgt.
Garry Schmidt relived the moments before Hiebert was shot in the chest
by a fellow officer's handgun.

Schmidt's leg was bleeding from an attack with a baseball bat and his
aborted effort to climb through a broken door window, he testified,
when he saw Const. Harold Schlamp try to climb into the house through
its peeled-back metal door and be pepper-sprayed in the face.

Then Schmidt said he saw what he later learned was a baseball bat just
miss Schlamp's exposed head; he saw Det. Sgt. Leonard Small fire into
the house with his own can of pepper spray, then drop to the ground
from the verandah and jump back up with a gun in his hand; he heard
Small scream at Hiebert to drop the bat -- and then he heard the gun
fire.

"All I heard was one pop, then it was silent," Schmidt told the hushed
courtroom.

Small was later cleared by an internal police probe. However, members
of Hiebert's family have filed lawsuits in connection with the shooting.

Minutes before, at about 10:20 p.m., Schmidt and seven other officers
from the vice squad had arrived at the house on Dufferin Avenue to
executive a search warrant on Hiebert, who had already pleaded guilty
to drug charges and was about to be sentenced when he was killed.

They expected to find Talwin and Ritalin, so-called "poor man's
heroin."

Previous searches of Hiebert's home had met no resistance.

However, when they discovered the wooden front door was locked,
Schmidt said, he and Schlamp went around to the back of the house,
flooded in light from a halogen lamp, and hollered at Hiebert to open
the door, identifying themselves as police officers. They were all
wearing jackets with the word "police" emblazoned in yellow lettering.

As they moved up the steps carrying a battering ram, Schmidt said,
Hiebert stood on the other side of the door and watched through the
glass window.

After identifying himself three times, Schmidt said he and Schlamp
rammed the door several times before realizing it opened outwards.
They then threw the battering ram through the window and attempted to
climb inside.

During examination by Martin Pollock, the lawyer for Hiebert's
daughter, Angela Nichols, Schmidt said it wouldn't have been
tactically feasible to try to break in through the front door, which
would have required them to try to break in through a second door, as
well.

Five hours earlier, Schmidt and the other members of the unit --
except Small, who was preparing his search warrant -- had attended a
late afternoon Christmas function put on by Canada Customs, an annual
event where members of the police service are invited to mix and mingle.

Schmidt told the inquest he had one beer from a cash bar before
leaving the dinner after an hour with some of the other unit members.

Although they had received implied permission to attend the event,
Schmidt acknowledged it was, and still is, against regulations to
consume alcohol while on duty. He later received a written reprimand.

But, while it is against the rules, Schmidt said yesterday he doesn't
believe one drink with dinner impaired his judgment while executing
the search warrant several hours later.

Small is expected to testify today at the inquest, which could last up
to three weeks.