SIX OFFICERS FACING CHARGES IN TORONTO

Allegedly Forged Notes, Records

TORONTO (CP) -- Six longtime veterans of Canada's largest urban police
force were hit yesterday with a battery of criminal charges after a
two-year probe into allegations of corruption, deceit and brutality among
members of the city's drug squad.

Between July 1995 and March 2002, the officers allegedly forged notes and
police records, gave false testimony and affidavits to obtain search
warrants and failed to account for seized evidence, said RCMP Chief Supt.
John Neily, head of a special Toronto police task force probing the squad.

"The special task force further alleges that the accused ..deliberately
betrayed the trust of some of those in the justice system, thereby
victimizing the entire justice system, those who serve in it, and the
public," Neily told a packed news conference at Toronto police headquarters.

"Police officers are not above the law. It never has been and never will be
acceptable for police to engage in criminal activity or take the law into
their own hands. There is no excuse."

All told, the officers, who between them share a collective 113 years of
service with Toronto police, face 40 individual charges, including perjury,
theft, extortion and assault causing bodily harm.

All six also face charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, and five are
facing multiple counts of attempt to obstruct justice. Four other officers
have been named as "unindicted co-conspirators," Neily said. The charges,
the culmination of a controversy that has swirled over the drug squad for
more than four years, left Toronto police Chief Julian Fantino pleading
with the public to keep the faith.

Fantino said he was "saddened and disappointed" by the charges but called
the charges "isolated" and said they're not reflective of any general
corruption on the Toronto force.

"Police officers everywhere strive for truth, duty and honour in whatever
they do," he said. "However, we are similarly committed to confronting our
failures and our weaknesses."

Indeed, he added, the charges should stand as proof of that and serve to
reassure the residents of Canada's most populous city that their police
force can still be trusted to uphold the law.

"In all of this, we must maintain our faith in the system. I do today, as I
have always done in the past."

The six officers were scheduled to appear in court yesterday. Earlier in
the day, police union lawyer Gary Clewley said the allegations are "nothing
more at this point," adding, "there isn't a lick of proof."

But whispers of corruption have plagued Toronto's central drug squad since
1999, when allegations first surfaced that officers were stealing from the
so-called "fink fund" used to pay off informants.

A smaller internal investigation not related to Neily's probe led to an
array of charges being laid in the fall of 2000, most of which were dropped
or stayed early last year.