BETTER POLICE TRAINING WOULD MAKE US ALL SAFER

The Laval police department failed, miserably, to provide its officers
with the training and support they need to do their jobs properly. As
a tragic result, Constable Daniel Tessier was killed on March 2, 2007,
and a fellow officer wounded, in a raid on a private home.

This week the provincial workplace health-and-safety board hammered
that message home: Daniel Tessier would still be alive if he or his
fellow officers had acted more prudently, notably by checking the
provincial gun registry before raiding the Brossard home of Basil
Parasiris. The suspected drug dealer, whose wife and children were in
the home at the time of the raid, said later he thought he was being
attacked by home invaders.

Since that terrible night, the Laval police department has trained its
500 officers in proper registry searches. It now also requires that an
operational plan be drawn up before officers launch what is called a
"dynamic entrance." New department regulations also require that the
plan be submitted to superior officers who will analyze any risks.

In hindsight, it seems extraordinary that it took the death of an
officer for such rules to be put in place. The sudden appearance of
police with their guns drawn will always catch people unawares and
throw them off. Police should be prepared for extreme emotional and
physical reactions. One would like to think that the very least police
would do is consider the risks ahead of time.

In the Parasiris case, Laval police searched the gun registry only for
the address of the place they intended to raid. Had they searched
Parasiris's name, they would have found he had a registered gun,
albeit one improperly registered at a previous address.

During his trial last year on a first-degree murder charge in
Tessier's death, Parasiris, who was acquitted, admitted he had bought
three other guns illegally and kept all four loaded in his house.

But if the Laval police department appears to have learned from
Tessier's death - and that of Laval Constable Valerie Gignac, killed
answering a disturbance call in 2005 - the rest of the province seems
slow to react.

At the province's police training academy no changes have been made in
the way cadets are trained, either in dynamic entrances or in
responding to disturbance calls. A spokesperson told media that the
school takes these issues very seriously - as well it should. And so
should police forces. A higher standard of training would make us all
safer.