CHARTER RIGHTS VIOLATIONS CITED IN SURREY SIX MOUNTIE'S ECSTASY
CASE

A Provincial Court judge has lambasted an RCMP officer charged in
connection with the Surrey Six murder investigation for botching a
large Richmond drug probe with repeated Charter of Rights violations.

In a decision released Friday, Judge Paul R. Meyers tossed out all
evidence gathered by police during a 14-month ecstasy-production
investigation involving five men and three Richmond properties, saying
Cpl. Danny Michaud, the officer in charge of the investigation, " must
accept responsibility for leading an investigation that ignored and
flaunted [ sic] the Accuseds' Charter of Rights," according to a June
ruling.

Michaud is also one of four RCMP members charged in connection with
the high-profile Surrey Six murder case, in which six people were shot
dead in a Surrey highrise in October 2007.

In that case, he is charged with breach of trust, attempting to
obstruct justice and attempting to mislead Ontario Provincial Police
investigators, who were conducting the internal investigation at the
RCMP's request.

In the Richmond probe, police had learned ecstasy was being
mass-produced, stored and packaged in foil bags marked " Chinese tea,"
at three residential locations -- including homes on Raymond Avenue and
Gilbert Road -- then shipped to Toronto and elsewhere.

In January 2007, investigators saw two men dumping what was believed
to be ecstasy tablets and supplies. Believing the suspects had clued
in to the investigation, police moved in and arrested them.

Among his criticisms, Meyers cited police for not using an
interpreter, despite knowing the suspects spoke primarily Mandarin or
Cantonese. " The police had a pretty good idea that one or more of the
people who they would be accosting, detaining and arresting would have
English as their [ very distant] second language and could have
significant difficulty understanding, speaking and reading English,
especially when it involved the complicated wording used in explaining
the Charter Rights to an Accused," Meyers wrote in his ruling.

After arresting two of the men at the Raymond Avenue residence -- one
of whom was only wearing boxers and the other boxers and a T-shirt --
police handcuffed them and told them to sit on the front lawn.

They waited for about 30 minutes for firefighters to arrive, at which
point the men were hosed down with cold water in an effort to
decontaminate them of any toxic chemicals present in the lab.

Meyers criticized the officers for doing so without using any privacy
screens, as neighbours looked on. The men later testified they did not
understand what was happening at the time.

These factors, in addition to Michaud's choice to seek a telewarrant
rather than apply for one in person, and failure to file a report in
the Richmond court registry within seven days of the warrants'
execution, prompted Meyers to conclude the officers " were totally
unconcerned with what Charter Rights these coAccuseds were guaranteed
by virtue of Canadian law," he wrote.

" The officers in charge just did not seem to care."

Accused in the case were Tin Lik Ho, Qing Hou, Shao Wei Huang, Yi Feng
Kevin Li and Kai Lai Kyle Zhou.