MOM WANTS APOLOGY TO CLEAR DAUGHTER'S NAME

The mother of a Stouffville teenager killed in an August car accident is
demanding police retract their claim her daughter was impaired.

"There is no scientific data saying she was impaired," said Karen
Montgomery, whose 17-year-old daughter, Janette, was killed when she lost
control of her car and hit a traffic pole in East Gwillimbury the morning
of Aug. 29. "I've asked for a retraction and I want an apology. I want her
name cleared."

Janette was giving a friend a ride home shortly after 9 a.m. when she
changed lanes to pass another car.

It was raining heavily and she lost control, crossed in front of the other
car and hit its front bumper. Her Cadillac Eldorado, a gift from her
grandfather just weeks earlier, left the road and hit a pole.

The Cardinal Carter Catholic High School student was taken to hospital,
where she died.

Her 19-year-old passenger suffered non-life-threatening injuries and the
driver of the other car was not hurt.

Three months later, York Regional Police issued a news release stating a
toxicology report from the Centre of Forensic Science indicated Janette had
drugs and alcohol in her system and was impaired.

However, toxicology reports do not indicate impairment, only a level of
drugs or alcohol present in a test sample of a subject's blood, urine or
saliva.

A copy of Janette's toxicology report obtained by the York Region Newspaper
Group indicates she had a level of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana,
consistent with having exposure to the drug within about two hours of the
crash.

Unlike alcohol, there is no THC blood level that constitutes a charge under
the Criminal Code.

There is also no data to support what level of THC would indicate impairment.

The report also indicted an unknown level of a benzoylecgonine, a
metabolite of cocaine found in the body after ingestion of the drug. It
suggests Janette used cocaine, but does not pinpoint when or how much.

Her toxicology screening also showed trace, or amounts below a level that
can be quantified, of ethanol in her blood.

The ethanol could have come from drinking alcohol or something as benign as
mouthwash.

Nowhere does the toxicology report say Janette was impaired.

York Regional Police Staff-Sgt. Thomas Carrique admits the news release
should never have indicated it did.

"It should have said, based on the toxicology report, all the other
evidence and the analysis of a drug recognition expert, who also happens to
be a qualified breath alcohol technician and a collision investigator, she
was impaired, in our opinion," he said.

Two York Region officers were recently certified as drug recognition
experts. However, the drug recognition expert (DRE) program, first
instituted by Los Angeles Police in the late 1970s, is designed to
determine impairment using a series of psychological and physical tests on
live subjects, not by looking at the toxicology reports of the deceased.

"That's where the confusion may be," Staff-Sgt. Carrique said. "He did not
perform a DRE examination, but he used his expertise as a drug recognition
expert, an extremely qualified breath alcohol technician and a very
experienced collision investigator to form the opinion she was impaired at
the time of the crash."

That's not good enough for Janette's mother, who says her family and
friends were upset to read newspaper stories claiming she was impaired
without the scientific proof to back it up.

"The toxicology report didn't say she was impaired. There is no way they
can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was. They've tried, convicted
and sentenced her without all the facts," she said. "This has been
devastating to my family. The police have made her look like a criminal,
like a bad person. She was just a normal teenager and her rights have been
trampled on."

Police issue news releases to educate young drivers about the danger of
impaired driving, not to drag the names of the deceased through the mud,
Staff-Sgt. Carrique said.

"We're trying to make our roads safer and maybe save a life in the process
of doing so," he said.

The police have no plans to issue a correction or retraction of the
release, Staff-Sgt. Carrique said.

Ms Montgomery said she may consider a civil suit.

"The police should stop and think how their policies effect people. No
other mom, dad and grandparents need to go through this," she said. "We've
been put through the mill. There's no evidence she even smoked marijuana,
she may have just been in the room where someone was smoking. Maybe she did
smoke it. Either way, the police have said she is guilty of driving
impaired when there's no scientific evidence to that fact."