COPS BUST INTO INNOCENT WOMAN'S HOME

They thought they'd find a marijuana growing operation

Fung Han Ng was just sitting down to eat breakfast Wednesday morning when
she heard a loud bang at her door.

By the time she looked up from her plate, the dark wooden front door had
been forced open and several uniformed men were rushing at her.

"They yelled 'Police' and then they were all in here," the woman said as
she sat in the kitchen of her Cambridge home Wednesday afternoon.

Close to 10 police officers - some in uniform and some in regular clothing
- - started rummaging through her two-storey home. Some went upstairs, others
to the basement. Then an officer took her hands and put them behind her back.

"They said 'You are under arrest,'" Ng recalled with a shaky voice.

"I said 'What for?' and they said 'For theft of hydro.'"

Ng couldn't believe it. During the 10 years she and her family have lived
on quiet Hilborn Avenue in east Galt, they never once broke the law.

But there was little this woman could do as she watched strangers search
through her home.

They were looking for any sign of a marijuana grow operation, but they
didn't find one.

Ng said one officer even went into the room where her 89-year-old mother
was changing.

"They wouldn't let her finish dressing,"Ng said. "And they searched her."

In the kitchen, Ng said officers sat her down at the table and explained
that readings from her hydro meter did not match her hydro bills. A hydro
official later told her that her latest bill had gone up $120, Ng said.

When officers were finished searching the home, Ng said, they all came into
the kitchen and shook their heads.

"I'm scared. I'm mad. And now we are frustrated," Ng said, as she and her
husband, Shiu, scanned the yellow pages trying to find someone to fix their
broken door.

She doesn't know what police used to break it in, but pieces of wood were
scattered along the doorway. The door couldn't be closed and so they were
frantically trying to find someone to fix it before nightfall.

"This is an accusation clearly," said Shiu Ng, who rushed home from his
Hamilton workplace after receiving a frantic call from his wife yesterday.
"How can you jump to that conclusion?" he asked of officers believing a
marijuana grow operation could be in his home.

"It's a violation."

Staff Sergeant Brent Thomlison, spokesman for Waterloo Regional Police,
said officers in the drug unit "received information and as a result of
that information" a search warrant was issued.

Although the warrant was issued for theft of hydro, not drugs, Thomlison
said officers expected to find a marijuana grow operation inside.

"There was none," Thomlison admitted. "A mistake was made."

Officers met with the couple Wednesday afternoon, apologized and offered to
pay the repair cost for the door.

Thomlison would not say what information led them to believe the family was
stealing hydro, but said such mistakes are rare.

"We certainly do everything we can to avoid a situation like this," he
said. "But mistakes happen. It's something that's not common, but it does
happen from time to time."

Barb Shortreed, communications officer with Cambridge and North Dumfries
Hydro, said they were not the "initiators" in this case. She said hydro
officials are usually contacted by police and asked to assist in locating
potentially dangerous power diversions, such as lines that are cut.

Citing customer confidentiality, Shortreed could not say if there was a
discrepancy between the Ngs' hydro meter and their bill. However, she did
say that during the search of the home, investigators were "not able to
clearly identify . . . an obvious power diversion."

After the couple fix their door a bill will be sent to Waterloo Regional
Police.