MAN STOPPED WITH MARIJUANA WAS VICTIM OF RACIAL PROFILING, JUDGE SAYS

Court throws out evidence against Asian man

A B.C. judge has thrown out the evidence against an Asian man stopped
with 57 marijuana plants in his trunk after ruling he had been a
victim of racial profiling.

Zai Chong Huang was pulled over in January 2009 as he travelled east
along Canim-Hendrix Lake Road in 100 Mile House. A search of his truck
turned up the potted plants, a timer, a bottle of liquid fertilizer
and 150 empty plant pots, and Huang was charged with possession of
marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.

The officer, identified in court documents only as Const. Berze, said
he'd pulled Huang over for swerving twice in his own lane. However,
after reviewing circumstantial evidence, Provincial Court judge
Elizabeth Bayliff decided Berze did so only because of his own
prejudice against Asians.

The most damning evidence came in an interview between Berze and Huang
on the night of the incident.

"You must be guilty as s--t," Berze is quoted as saying in an
interview transcript. "You're probably a gang member, aren't you? An
Asian gang from Surrey, right? Well you're not saying anything so it
must be true. ... If I were the Canadian government I'd kick your ass
right out of Canada is what I'd do.

"You come into my country and you start trafficking dope around.
That's bulls--t. My wife and kids live here in 100 Mile House, and
pieces of s--t like you are gonna come in. And if they are trafficking
drugs in my hometown, I do not like it at all."

Huang, whose native language is Cantonese, only gave short replies
indicating he did not understand.

Bayliff called the outburst a display of Berze's own
anger.

"[Berze] demonstrates that he is personally very angry at a particular
group of people of Asian extraction -- those who are associated with
organized crime, particularly the production and trafficking of
marijuana and other drugs," she said. "He demonstrates enmity to that
group of people. Further, he assumes that Mr. Huang is part of that
group."

Around the same time Berze pulled Huang over, Berze's colleague,
Const. Manseau, stopped another Asian man, whose vehicle also
contained marijuana plants, a few kilo-metres behind. That man turned
out to be Huang's twin brother, Zai Qing.

Manseau said he, too, pulled the man over for swerving in his lane.
Bayliff noted the coincidence might not mean anything on its own, but
"it is the whole of the evidence and all of the circumstances that
must be considered."

She went on to say she found it "more probable than not" that Berze
saw Huang, and perhaps his brother, at a gas station earlier on and
followed Huang's vehicle, looking for a reason to pull it over.

Bayliff concluded by saying the principle issue is that it is a
fundamental liberty for people to be able to move about the country
freely without improper police interference.

"In my view, when I balance the public interest in seeing this
prosecution proceed against the charter value at issue, I conclude
that to admit evidence would bring the administration of justice into
disrepute."