NEWS RELEASE

NEWS RELEASE

March 15, 2000

For Immediate Release

BRITISH COLUMBIA JUDGE CONDEMNS RCMP FOR POLICE-STATE TACTICS

Judge Carlgren ruled the search warrant was "inaccurate, incomplete and misleading" and that police procedures were "sloppy at best and deceitful at worst."

Ottawa – Today, Garry Breitkreuz, Official Opposition Firearms Critic, released the transcript of a February 23^rd court decision made by The Honourable Judge Carlgren in the case of Regina -v- James Edmond Buck in Cranbrook, BC. "I am publicizing this case because it vividly demonstrates how RCMP officers, aided and abetted by paranoid politicians, have twisted the Criminal Code into a tool to harass law abiding, responsible firearm owners," explained Breitkreuz. "The judgement in this case should serve as a warning to everyone that a dangerous police-state mentality has been allowed to infect the common sense of RCMP officers whose motto is supposed to be ‘Maintain the Right’."

Here’s what happened. Mr. Buck pled guilty to charges resulting from a domestic dispute in October 1996. At the time, the court ruled that Mr. Buck was no threat to public safety and no need to prohibit Mr. Buck from owning firearms. In May 1999, RCMP showed up at Mr. Buck’s house with a search warrant and seized all his firearms. Evidently, the police had somehow concluded that the judge in the previous case had made a mistake when he hadn’t imposed a firearms prohibition order.

Judge Carlgren dismissed all charges against Mr. Buck and made the following damning statements about how the RCMP and the Crown prosecutors conducted themselves in this case:

"Nothing in the police files following Mr. Buck’s guilty plea is capable of founding a belief that he represented any threat to public safety."

"The issuance of a search warrant which ended in the seizure of guns and ammunition…is said to be inaccurate, incomplete and misleading. I believe it to be all three."

"No Justice of the Peace acting judicially could have concluded a search was necessary if given complete and accurate information."

"To suggest the accused was convicted on the basis of the facts reported to police without bothering to check the court record or the prosecutor is sloppy at best and deceitful at worst."

"Police are not a Court of Appeal they are only enforcement officers."

"Further, given the complete and utter disregard for the niceties of the law and the rights of the accused demonstrated by holding firearms, all the ones not part of these charges, to which the police had no right under the law and the grudging and incomplete disclosure which this case has seen, I am not prepared to draw any conclusion of good faith. It appears in fact that the opposite is true."

"As I have said the non-responsiveness to disclosure requests are strong indicators of an overall view here that the police make the rules and are not to be second-guessed."

"It is hard to imagine what view of the provable facts could lead to the approval of these charges much less a trial."

"The RCMP officers in this case should be investigated for their outright contempt for the previous court’s decision, infringing on Mr. Buck’s fundamental property rights and violating his Charter right under Section 8 ‘to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure’." Breitkreuz asked, "I wonder what disciplinary action former Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh and the Commissioner of the RCMP have meted out to these errant officers?"

Jim Abbott, Reform’s Solicitor General Critic, said he’s been troubled by this case since the day police arrived at Mr. Buck’s residence in Abbott’s riding. "Canadians are demanding the justice system, as a whole, and the policing community in particular to be accountable for their conduct. We simply want our justice system to focus on the real criminals, not law-abiding citizens," concluded Abbott.

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For a copy of the 6-page judgement, please call:

Yorkton Office: (306) 782-3309

Ottawa Office: (613) 992-4394

e-mail: breitg0@parl.gc.ca