POWER TRIPPERS

Imagine sitting in your kitchen one morning having breakfast, only to have
your front door kicked in by men yelling, 'Police!' Unfortunately, this is
exactly what one Cambridge woman and her mother had to endure July 24 when
Waterloo Regional Police broke down their door accusing them of operating a
marijuana grow house.

Fung Han Ng was sitting at her kitchen table eating breakfast when she
heard a loud bang at the front door. Before she had time to look up, her
front door had been kicked in and uniformed men were rushing at her. Ten
officers rummaged through the home going upstairs and into the basement.
One even searched her 89-year-old mother, who was dressing upstairs.

An officer placed Fung's hands behind her back. 'They said, 'You are under
arrest.' I said, 'What for?' and they said, 'For theft of hydro." Ng and
her husband Shui have lived on Cambridge's Hillborne Avenue for 10 years
and they've never broken the law. Naturally, Fung was upset and bewildered.
After searching, police were unable to find any sign of hydro tampering.

When Cambridge and North Dumfries Hydro was first contacted their
communications officer, Barb Shortreed, told reporters the hydro commission
wasn't the 'initiators' in this case. A few days later, their tune had
changed. On July 26, Cambridge and North Dumfries Hydro President and CEO
John Grotheer wrote a public apology to the Ng family. 'Your family was
blameless and we regret the disruption, embarrassment and inconvenience
this incident has caused you,' Grotheer wrote.

Grotheer told reporters that on July 19, hydro officials first contacted
police with concerns that hydro was being tampered with at the Ng home.
Hydro officials put in a diversion meter -- this measures the flow of
electricity to the home before going through the hydro meter -- and called
police again on July 23 and told them the diversion meter indicated theft
of hydro. The police then obtained a search warrant. Fung and her mother
are still dealing with the consequences of this colossal screw-up on both
the part of the hydro commission and the police.

Fung told reporters she still has problems with sleeping. 'I guess I'm
still thinking about the whole situation,' she one reporter. 'It will take
me a long time to forget about what happened to me.' Husband Shui, who had
to rush home from his Hamilton worksite, is also upset. 'This is an
accusation, clearly,' he told reporters. He asks how police could jump to
the conclusion that he and his wife were operating a grow house. It's a
question that police should be asking themselves. The police break-in was a
'violation,' Shui added.

Shui's use of the word 'violation' isn't an overstatement. The entire
fiasco was a violation of an innocent family's rights. Yes, police offered
an almost instant apology and later hydro officials did, but it still
doesn't erase what happened.

Did Waterloo regional police really need to kick a door in and handcuff the
first woman they saw? Police procedure should not be that you place a woman
under arrest while the investigation is still progressing. More incredibly,
they searched an 89-year-old woman who was dressing. Not to mention that
logic would dictate that an old woman is not exactly the type to be
operating a marijuana grow house.

Waterloo Regional Police Staff Sgt. Brent Thomlison told reporters, 'A
mistake was made.' He said police do everything they can to avoid a
situation like this. It's quite obvious, though, that police didn't do
everything they could to prevent a mistake. Procedure should be to allow
the occupant to open the door before just busting in. Procedure should also
be to thoroughly investigate the home before handcuffing a middle-aged
woman and placing her under arrest.

This fiasco should force all hydro commissions and police forces across the
province to review their operations and procedures. No other citizen should
have to endure what Fung and her mother had to endure that morning.