PAWN SHOP SUES COPS OVER SEARCH

A pawn shop owner claims she has videotape of two uniform police
officers illegally entering her locked Hintonburg business and is
seeking $650,000 in damages in civil court.

Chantal Laframboise has named both the Ottawa Police Services Board
and constables Mate Renic and Lee Sabourin as defendants in her
statement of claim filed in court following the Nov. 13, 2006, incident.

The owner and operator of Chachi's pawn shop at 1098A Somerset St. W.
- -- which has since closed -- claims the officers were caught on
surveillance video forcing their way into the locked store. The
camera was trained on the store's entrance.

Her lawyer, Mark Mossey, said he will hold off on making the contents
of the tape public on the chance that the matter can be settled out of court.

However, he did say the quality of the images captured on the video is good.

Mossey has told his client not to comment on the case, but said she
is "hopeful that justice will be done."

In a statement of defence, Ottawa police dispute the allegations on
the basis that the door to the shop was unlocked. After inspecting
the shop's books and papers, officers claim to have discovered a
scale with crack cocaine residue on it, as well as a quantity of crack cocaine.

Jeremy Wright, lawyer for the defendants, has yet to see the video.
He was reluctant to discuss the case further, saying it's still in
its preliminary stages.

"We've set out our position in the statement of defence," he said. "I
can't really speculate on how it will go forward."

Laframboise claims she had stepped out of her shop at about 1 p.m. to
take her mother to a doctor's appointment and returned about 15
minutes later to find the uniformed officers inside her store.

She was allegedly told to remove her coat, which was searched by an
officer, and then she was searched, whereupon the officers found $880
in her possession.

CLAIMS RIGHTS VIOLATED

The money was for her rent and the $400 float she had taken with her
from the store when she left, she alleges.

Laframboise was handcuffed and claims she was at no point told why
the officers were in the store or why she was being detained. She was
also not shown a search warrant.

Laframboise states that the officers' conduct violated her rights and
that they did not have lawful authority to enter the locked business.

In response, the Ottawa police state that "at all material times it
acted on reasonable and probable grounds and was justified in doing
what it was required or authorized to do, pursuant to provisions of
the Criminal Code."

The Ottawa police wouldn't comment on whether an internal
investigation had been launched.

None of the allegations in the suit have been proven in court.