COPS APOLOGIZE FOR TRAUMA

THE North Vancouver RCMP have issued an apology following mounting
public criticism about a Nov. 10 standoff.

North Vancouver RCMP Emergency Response Team (ERT) members surrounded
a house at 19th Street and Jones Avenue earlier this month.

Police responded to a report that there was a gun in the basement
suite of the house.

Police say the complaint involved a "male with a gun passed out in a
basement surrounded by drug paraphernalia."

After a three-hour standoff with ERT snipers, a control perimeter and
neighbours watching, four young men, who had been sleeping, were
arrested at gun-point. The reputed gun turned out to be a
grey-and-orange Nintendo game system accessory that someone saw
through a window.

The young men had recently moved into the suite and had not yet
placed blinds in the living room.

The young men, ages 18 to 20, and their parents want the incident
erased from the police computer.

They claim North Van Mounties botched the incident by not
investigating further the gun report before calling out the ERT.

One parent, Lorne Evans, who saw his two sons arrested and had an ERT
gun pointed at him called the police response "overkill."

North Vancouver RCMP say the incident will remain on police record
for five years as an unfounded report.

Police said on Friday that written apologies were going to the young
men for the trauma experienced. Police are not apologizing for their
actions.