NRP DEFENDS ITS DRUG-RAID SIGNS

Signs used by Niagara Regional Police to alert the public when it's
conducting marijuana grow-op raids are unlike ones that landed police
in another Ontario city in hot water with the provincial privacy
commissioner, the service's deputy chief says.

Cornwall's police department came under fire last year after it began
a controversial practice of posting signs on the lawns of homes that
had been searched for illegal drugs.

The large signs carried the notice, "Drug Search Warrant Executed At
," giving investigators space to fill in the street address.

But shortly after the first sign - about the size of a standard real
estate sign - was planted in front of a small Cornwall apartment
complex last January, complaints began rolling in from civil liberty
advocates.

The office of Ontario Privacy Commission Ann Cavoukian launched an
investigation and concluded in October that the signs breach privacy
laws. Investigator Mark Ratner ruled the signs provide personal
information by listing addresses where police executed search warrants.

The commission ordered the police service to stop posting the
drug-search signs.

Niagara Regional Police recently began posting signs with similar
bulletins on one of its vehicles to let people know when it's raiding
marijuana growing operations.

The NRP has been using the approach since the fall when it bought a
large van to transport officers and equipment to pot-growing busts.

Four large magnets - about the same size as a real estate sign - can
be attached to the van as mobile public service announcements. The
signs carry two different messages in big, black letters: "Marijuana
Grow-Op Raid," and "Police Raid in Progress."

Deputy Chief Joe Matthews said there is an important distinction
between signs placed on a vehicle and signs stuck in the ground in
front of a property, bearing an address.

"It's not meant in any way to comment on the residents of the home,
just to provide the public with an understanding of what the police
activity is," he said Friday.

The signs are not an attempt to prejudge or "brand" anyone as being
involved in criminal activity who may live at a residence subject to a
police grow-op raid, Matthews said.

"Obviously, people are innocent until they are proven guilty and are
taken in due course through the judicial process," he said.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which lodged the complaint
against Cornwall police that led to the privacy commission
investigation, acknowledged there are differences between the signs
used by the two services.

"There's certainly some distinctions between them, but I think some of
our concerns would still be relevant," said Graeme Norton, the
association's public-safety project director.

The association believes police departments can enter "dangerous"
territory when they take deliberate steps to publicize drug raids
instead of simply making the information public.

The signs can send out a message that a particular residence houses a
grow-op, regardless of what the police investigation actually finds
and whether any resulting charges are proven in court, Norton said.

"There's not necessarily going to be a lot of followup to that, and
will lead community members to make their own decisions and reach
their own conclusions about what might have been happening there. In
that type of scenario, imaginations could conceivably run wild," he
said.

Cornwall police haven't used any of its drug-search signs since the
privacy commission ruling.

But Chief Dan Parkinson hasn't changed his mind about the legality of
the signs or their merit.

"Some people called it the Scarlet Letter approach and public shaming,
well, it wasn't about that at all," he said.

Parkinson said he initiated the sign program in response to a push
from the public for police to increase its presence in the battle
against drug problems that proliferate the city.

"We wouldn't have done this arbitrarily or for any other reason but to
respond to what the community was telling us they wanted us to do," he
said.

Niagara police hope the signs draw attention to their efforts to
dismantle grow-ops and lead to assistance from the public, Matthews
said.

"If the public sees that the police are taking action, it increases in
their consciousness and maybe assists us in getting information more
readily from them in the future when they see things that might be
suspicious," he said.