POT ACTIVIST FELGER ARRESTED IN POLICE RAID

Outspoken Abbotsford pot activist Tim Felger was busted for growing
marijuana at his Bradner Road property again but this time he was angry
about how it all went down.

Felger said that Abbotsford police Emergency Response Team members
surrounded his car in front of Dave Kandal elementary school on Mount
Lehman Road just before 10:30 a.m. Friday.

On Monday Felger angrily described how police ERT members surrounded his
car in front of the school while a helicopter hovered overhead.

"They threw a concussion grenade at me and I was standing by the gas tank
of my car," Felger said.

Abbotsford police spokesman Const. Shinder Kirk took issue with the name of
the device, saying, "It was a distraction device of some kind."

He likened the device to a stun grenade.

"It causes temporary sensory overload," Kirk said, adding it's used to help
police officers extract someone from an unsafe situation.

"That's part of the investigation," Kirk said. "There are some concerns
that were raised."

Kirk confirmed the arrest Monday, saying, "Three men, one aged 46, one 45,
and the last 26, were taken into custody away from the property [and they
were] released pending a court appearance at a later date."

He said police seized 3,630 pot plants when they went onto Felger's Bradner
Road property more than five hours later.

Kirk said the ERT helped the Abbotsford police drug squad as part of an
ongoing investigation.

Felger said he had 10,000 plants on his property prior to the raid.

"Where the . . . did they all go?" he asked Monday.

The arrests followed the airing of two stories on Felger by television
stations.

Felger especially took issue with one station that he says he granted an
interview as long as they protected his location.

"The agreement was that he wasn't to give away my location or he wasn't to
say that it was on Bradner Road," Felger said. "[They] betrayed my trust.
They gave away my location on TV and then they further betrayed my trust by
giving the video to the Abbotsford Police Department without informing me
they had."

He continued, "So it was a total surprise I got busted. [They] just came
right out and said, 'At his Bradner home he's growing pot.' That's
definitely outside of [our] agreement."

Officials from the television station were unavailable for comment to press
deadlines.

Police, however, denied the raid on Felger's property came as a result of
the TV coverage.

"There's CBC and Shaw did a piece as well. Of course people are saying that
it's only as a result of that that [we] did this," Kirk said. "No,
absolutely not. That was only something that confirmed what the drug squad
already believed was already going on.

"Those pieces just confirmed what we already believed."

Felger also said police shut off the electricity to his home plus took
several of his personal effects such as his computer, his flashlights, his
electric tools, his video camera and his carpet cleaner.

"They're going to send me to jail [but] I'm not a bad guy. I've always been
a good citizen."

Felger, who ran for mayor last year, said he wants to debate MP Randy White
on the issue of marijuana decriminalization.