POLICE CHIEF DENIES 'BLUE WALL OF SILENCE' IN CORRUPTION PROBE

Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino moved to clamp a lid on a massive
police corruption scandal yesterday as new questions erupted about the
way police, prosecutors and the judiciary dealt with the unprecedented
scope of the alleged misconduct.

Chief Fantino played down evidence of threats, widespread perjury and
theft among his drug officers and contradicted statements that his
force met internal investigators with hostility and
non-compliance.

"I don't think there is a blue wall of silence, and I can't speak to
the hostility," Chief Fantino said. "The way things have been
portrayed -- as if there is widespread corruption -- that's not the
case at all."

The internal task force found evidence of wrongdoing by 17 members of
the central field command drug squad. However, Chief Fantino stressed
that only six were charged with offences, including conspiracy to
obstruct justice, perjury, extortion, theft and assault causing bodily
harm.

Toronto Police Association lawyer Gary Clewley said the head of the
task force, RCMP Chief Superintendent John Neily, "had a stake in
justifying a mega-investigation that costs millions of dollars. I'm
not saying he was padding, but I am saying he was squeezing every bit
of juice out of the lemon."

But lawyers for some alleged victims of police misconduct said the
internal investigation failed to root out all the wrongdoing on the
force, and the need for a full public inquiry has escalated.

"What has really happened here is a few cops have been singled out to
take the heat for a much broader problem," civil litigator Peter Biro
said. "It's a way for the chief to say that it is an isolated problem."

Mr. Biro and criminal lawyer Edward Sapiano said the disturbing
reality remains that many officers engaged in misconduct that simply
fell short of supporting criminal charges.

"I will not be content until other branches of the justice system step
up to bat and acknowledge their responsibility," Mr. Sapiano said. He
said the Department of Justice showed "willful blindness" by staying
some charges, but not others, as the allegations and suspicion multiplied.

"I can't imagine that anyone would reasonably think that was the
case," said James Leising, a senior Justice Department official. Mr.
Leising said the task force notified him if "credible evidence" turned
up to indicate wrongdoing by a police officer. "We took the right
course."The corruption story caught fire when, after a three-year
battle by The Globe and Mail and CBC, affidavits written by
Superintendent Neily were unsealed, revealing allegations that rogue
officers falsified search warrants, traded in drugs, supplied perjured
testimony and shook down citizens.

However, the affidavits in effect exonerated an entire unit of the
drug squad based on four complainants having refused to co-operate
with investigators. Mr. Biro yesterday took issue with that, saying
that two of the complainants are his clients and that they did
everything they could to help.

He said the pair, a married couple, accused police officers of
emptying a major portion of their savings from a safety deposit box
during a raid. They were scheduled to be interviewed by a task-force
investigator last February, but the interview was cancelled,
rescheduled and then cancelled again.

"I expressed shock, to say the least," Mr. Biro said. "The explanation
provided was that there was a certain amount of time in which to
complete their investigation and only a certain amount of resources to
dedicate, that they had to focus on the best or strongest cases.

"Now, you have people saying this crew has a clean bill of health
because no charges were laid," he said. "That is absolutely shocking
to me." Mr. Biro said the investigators were dedicated but lacked true
independence because they answered to Chief Fantino.In the Ontario
Legislature yesterday, New Democratic Party Leader Howard Hampton
predicted that the courts will have to deal with "an avalanche" of
applications to reopen drug cases.

An already overstrained court system will be hard pressed to deal with
the additional workload, Mr. Hampton said.