POLICE HIT WITH $11.6M LAWSUIT

Drug Squad Strip-Searched Me, Woman Says

A Vietnamese woman alleges in a $11.66-million lawsuit that Toronto drug
squad officers falsely imprisoned her and kidnapped her two children after
an illegal search.

She also alleges that police "terrorized" and strip-searched her and her
12-year-old son.

The lawsuit sprang from the same heroin trafficking probe that has led to
civil court allegations by another Vietnamese family that $600,000 in cash
and valuables was taken after a drug raid on the Thy restaurant in Chinatown.

The lawsuits name 19 officers as defendants, three of whom had non-related
criminal charges stayed against them last week.

Phan Ni Pham alleges the afternoon of Feb. 10, 1999 -- the same day as the
Thy raid -- drug squad officers raided her Bathurst St. apartment without
"reasonable and probable" grounds and with a search warrant obtained with
"inaccurate" or "incomplete" information.

Home Ransacked

Pham alleges police broke down her door, ransacked her home and then
verbally abused, strip-searched and "vigorously interrogated" her and her
eldest son, Daniel, 12, amid threats of lengthy jail terms.

Pham claims police neither showed her the search warrant nor read her
rights and kept her captive until 6 a.m. the next day.

Pham claims that even after being "fully exonerated," police "deliberately
or negligently" gave information to children's aid that kept Daniel and her
youngest son, David, 5, in foster care for two days.

Search Warrants

Court documents show search warrants for the Thy restaurant and the
Bathurst St. apartment were among a dozen approved that day by Justice
Lauren Marshall, now a regional senior judge in the Ontario court.

Pham, who named the Toronto Police Services Board, 16 officers and Marshall
in the lawsuit, is seeking more than $4 million in damages each for herself
and Daniel, and $3.5 million for David. Pham's allegations haven't been
proven in court.

Marshall said she was dropped from the suit a year ago on consent.

In a statement of defence, police say a suspect in a heroin probe lived in
the same building as the Phams and was seen taking a plastic bag into
Pham's apartment that had been used to carry heroin. They said Pham would
not speak to them initially, but when she offered an explanation she was
"eliminated as a suspect." She was not charged

They denied strip-searching the Phams and of "any dealings" with the
children's aid society.