WVPD NEED MEDIA LESSONS

Today's question: What's the difference between the West Vancouver Police
Department (WVPD) and the Keystone Kops?

Answer: The Keystone Kops were supposed to be funny.

Here's another fine mess where simple public/press relations would have
saved the WVPD's flatfoots from stepping squarely on the dog droppings:

It says here that the WVPD and other police were absolutely correct - no
matter what this paper's editorial voice boomed, in chorus with the usual
champions of fastidious rights for suspected and convicted criminals
against the rights of the conned, robbed, raped and murdered public - in
using trained dogs to sniff out marijuana stowed in vehicles on BC Ferries.
The police scooped 7.2 kilos of the stuff and laid three charges.

Did the Sherlocks correctly deduce that professional drug dealers have had
easy passage in their mainland-to-islands trade, simply using the ferry
system? Elementary, my dear Watson. Were they therefore justified in
countering that illegal, exploitative trade? Also elementary.

So far, so good. But then the opinion-mongers in the media predictably
scrambled to snatch the who's-the-most-"liberal" prize, happily steadying
the soap box of those like Mr. Justice John Dixon of the Capilano College
Supreme Court while he ponderously ruled that the searches were illegal,
lacking search warrants.

Wrong. It transpired that the cops got telephoned search warrants from
ashore. Rafe Mair divulged this crucial information the morning after he
and Dixon had a toothless like-in on the subject on CKNW. (Rafe, unlike
many open-line show hosts, has the integrity to make corrections.)

But that was last week's column. This week's is: Last Friday, more than a
week after Rafe's corrective, three of B.C.'s big-bang media biz people
were still repeating the canards against the cops - still talking
"civillibertiesspeak" about the (non-existent) lack of proper search warrants.

The three - Bill Good, Keith Baldrey and Paul Wilcocks, the latter filling
in for Vaughn Palmer, on Bill's excellent "Cutting Edge of the
Leg(islature)" segment on CKNW - then obviously got the high sign from
Bill's producer that, oops, they were wrong about that little matter.
Heaven knows it is hard for we gods of the media to admit error, especially
on air. (Bill had an excuse: He was on holiday when the cops struck.)

But not to embarrass these three sages. The point is that a police
department alert to public opinion - and properly protective of its own and
its town's reputation - would seize the initiative. It would have a
definitive list of media contacts. It would flash the facts to them by
every technology in the book as soon as the fiction emerged.

But WVPD Chief Grant Churchill seems to prefer invisibility. A chief
should, selectively, take public positions, say I. The citizenry should be
steamed at the chief, Mayor Ron Wood in his role of head of the police
commission, and commission members for yet another, and needless, black
mark - which darkens not only the department but the town.

Straight-up PR doesn't have to use smoke, mirrors and free lunches for
reporters to make the best case possible for the client. Stating the facts
can help a lot.

As for the dopes of the Marijuana Party trying to foil the bud-sniffing
dogs - book 'em, Sarge. I believe it's called obstruction of justice.