RAID VICTIM TO GET $20K IN DAMAGES

A city dad who was innocently making a pickle sandwich when Tac Team cops
burst into his northeast residence was awarded $20,000 in damages yesterday.

Justice Ernest Hutchinson ruled police should have done a more thorough
investigation before relying on bad information from a drug informant to
raid the home of Darryl Crampton.

Crampton was in his kitchen around lunchtime on April 13, 1995, when
heavily armed cops stormed his 32 Ave. N.E. apartment.

Crampton was digging a pickle out of a jar with a steak knife when a
Tactical Unit officer in body armour came in and ordered him to the floor.

A stunned Crampton initially froze, causing then-Const. Anthony Manning to
order him a second time to drop the knife and get down.

While the city man dropped to his knees, Manning came up behind him, forced
him down and put a knee in his back to hold him there while the apartment
was secured.

Hutchinson said Manning's actions were justified because the officer was
under the incorrect belief there were weapons, including an AK-47 assault
rifle, present.

But he said the conduct of drug investigators in getting a warrant without
determining Crampton, not the suspected drug growers, lived there made
police liable for his injuries.

"I find that reasonable grounds (to raid the apartment) did not exist and
the defendants are accordingly liable," the Queen's Bench judge said.

Crampton, who was not present in court yesterday because he was at his
sister's funeral in Ottawa, suffered five cracked ribs in the incident.

Police -- acting on information from a previously reliable informant --
suspected there was a marijuana grow operation inside.

Officers left after finding neither drugs nor weapons in the home.