POLICE SEARCH TACTICS COME UNDER FIRE AGAIN

POLICE tactics used in executing a search warrant have come under fire for
the second consecutive day.

Elmwood resident Grant Andrusky said he returned to his home Monday night
to find it had been turned upside down by police futilely hunting for a
marijuana grow operation.

"When I got home I saw the front door had been forced open and I thought
someone had broken in," Andrusky, 40, said. "I took the (steering wheel
club device) and went in thinking there might be trouble.

"I could see that things had been turned upside down and when I turned a
corner, there were two men near my computer room. I raised the club to
strike and the nearest man pulled out a handgun, pointed it at me and said
he was with the police.

"I could have been shot for simply trying to protect my home."

Andrusky said the search was wrapping up as he arrived, adding the
remaining officers were wearing dark clothing, not regular police uniforms.
He said he was upset that police hadn't posted an officer at his front door
and that they hadn't carried out any surveillance or a background check
before they smashed their way into his home.

"One of the officers said an informant had told them that they'd find a
marijuana grow operation here that was being run by the Hells Angels,"
Andrusky, a trucker now on workers' compensation benefits, said.

"I don't have a criminal record. I don't hang out with the Angels. There
are no tell-tale signs of a grow operation."

It was the second questionable execution of a search warrant this week. On
Sunday morning, an Atlantic Avenue couple and their nine-year-old son were
forced from their home at gunpoint as more than 30 officers spent three
hours searching their home for a 7 mm handgun.

As in Andrusky's case, police Sunday told Walter Cerros, a machine shop
plant manager, and Sandra Horyski-Cerros, a Neighbourhood Watch captain,
that they were acting on information provided by an informant.

Justice Minister Gord Mackintosh has agreed to meet with the Cerros family
on Friday afternoon. The couple has filed complaints with the Law
Enforcement Review Agency and Police Chief Jack Ewatski's office. Winnipeg
police have refused to comment on both incidents.

Andrusky said he would file complaints with the Law Enforcement Review
Agency and Winnipeg police, and would contact the provincial Justice
Department.

He said he's familiar with police operations -- his father was a member of
the RCMP for 23 years.

"I couldn't believe that a police officer pointed a gun at my son," Richard
Andrusky, 70, said in a telephone interview from his home in Thunder Bay.
"I was afraid for him."

Richard Andrusky, who spent time on the RCMP's drug squad in Toronto and
had retired as a staff sergeant, said he knows that things have changed
since he retired but he said he found the way Winnipeg police had executed
the search warrant to be questionable. He said he couldn't believe a
similar incident had happened Sunday and that both had been carried out on
the simple say-so of an informant without any attempt to verify the tip.

"That's not police technique... that's bloody awful," the senior Andrusky
said. "What's going on in Winnipeg -- do you have a police state?"

The home, a rental, had no signs typical of a grow operation. There was
none of the pungent odour associated with marijuana plants. There were no
moisture traps -- vinyl sheets taped to the interior walls -- and no signs
of excessive moisture either inside or outside the home.

Andrusky said police used a battering ram to knock open his front door.
Kitchen cupboards were left open, containers of prescription pills and
vitamins were tossed on a counter. In the upstairs bedroom, police pulled a
heating vent and some duct work out of the floor. "The last time I checked,
you couldn't hide a grow operation in a kitchen cupboard or a pill box,"
Andrusky said. "And I don't know what kind of marijuana you could grow
inside a heating vent."

In the basement, police demolished a wall. Drywall and insulation from a
foundation wall were pulled down and strewn about the floor.

Andrusky said he understands police have a difficult job, "but I certainly
don't think much of their methods".

Andrusky said he asked the police as they were leaving about who was going
to replace his front door.

"They told me to call the city's claims office," Andrusky said. "People at
the city said it would take five days before they could take a look at the
damage."