COP ACTS IN BAD FAITH SO ALL CHARGES DISMISSED

Drug and weapons charges have been dismissed against two men after a
judge found that a veteran RCMP officer acted in bad faith during the
search of a vehicle.

Responding to a report of a vehicle driving erratically, Golden RCMP

Const. Ken Winters, a 30-year veteran of the force, approached a
rental vehicle occupied by Oliver Malisi and Kennedy Oringa Olal.

Winters asked the two men for ID and Olal, the driver, produced a
temporary Alberta driver's licence with virtually no particulars and
no photo, as well as the rental contract.

Malisi, who had been heading home to Calgary from Vancouver with Olal
at the time of the October 2006 incident, handed over a Calgary
Recreational ID card in the name of another person and with a poor photo.

Winters ran a check and discovered that Olal was facing charges in
Calgary for possession for the purpose of trafficking and weapons
offences but found the driver's licence was valid.

Winters handed Olal a ticket for driving without reasonable
consideration for others but then decided he needed better ID of the
accused to ensure the ticket would survive any legal challenge. He
asked to see any luggage, but both men said there was no luggage.
Undaunted, the officer asked for the trunk to be popped open. Inside
the trunk was a Foot Locker shopping bag that held a shoebox. Malisi
and Olal said they were not the owners of the bag. Winters opened the
box and found crack cocaine pucks and powdered cocaine and arrested
the two men. He later found a loaded, unregistered handgun in a
plastic bag at the rear of the trunk.

But B.C. Supreme Court Justice Thomas Melnick noted that at no time
did Winters obtain a search warrant and the reason for looking
further in the trunk evaporated after it was clear there was no
luggage. "There were no exigent or safety concerns and his initial
examination of the bag and the box were not incident to the arrest of
either of the accused nor to his investigation of the traffic
offence. Thus, that search in which he caused the trunk to be opened
and then found the cocaine was in breach of Mr. Olal's Charter right
to be secure against reasonable search." Similarly the discovery of
the firearm was made after an unreasonable search and the evidence
was also ruled inadmissable, forcing the Crown to dismiss all the charges.