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Plainsman1963

When cops inhale
Did narcs who busted pot church break the law by sparking up?

01-11-07 | NotToronto.Com | MATT MERNAGH

Did the Toronto Police narcs who swooped down on the Church of the Universe congregation in the Beaches, arresting 22 and laying 205 pot charges, actually inhale?

That's a loaded question for those worried about lack of accountability when it comes to officers breaking the law during investigations.

And if some of the arrestees are right, coppers did toke on-scene in the course of their reconnoitering.

Not that cops – or anyone else – should take a hit for indulging in the pleasures of the bong. But did those narcs actually violate the terms of the Criminal Code governing their behaviour while they built their case against the reefer-worshipping Christians?

Undercover officers are granted extensive powers under the law enforcement justification provisions of the Criminal Code as well as the Controlled Drugs And Substances Act. These laws were passed after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that cops may commit crimes, with exceptions, during undercover investigations.

But is there adequate oversight of these activities? Many say no. Under Ontario law, police must report every instance of an officer committing a crime in the line of duty to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, which is obliged to make the info public every year.

Oddly, that information has not been released for 2004 and 05.

"I don't know when they'll be ready for publication. All statute requirements are high-priority," an exasperated ministry spokesperson, Tony Brown, says of the two missing years.

But when these reports finally see the light of day, they won't reveal much, including which police force used the provisions and exactly how. "The reports are laughable," says the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's Alexi Wood, who argued before Parliament's Human Rights and Justice Committee that the law is overly broad, lacks oversight and, most importantly, public accountability.

The documents, she says, mostly reveal the number of times the "public officer designation," the code phrase allowing extra-legal action, was granted. A vague sentence about the crime committed, such as "conspiracy to commit an indictable offence" or "possession of an illegal firearm" serves as explanation.

Says Wood, "The reports are not what is required in a democratic society. We have no information whatsoever. What police force used the designation? We just don't know how this law is being used."

And unless someone is charged, she says, we may never know about the role of public officers.

That's what alarms Ontario NDP justice and attorney general critic Peter Kormos. Referring to the missing documents, he says the Criminal Code "seems to be undermined without the reporting. It says the police are not above the law.

The balance to this is the reporting. Without it, the law is corrupted.''

Kormos wrote to Corrections Minister Monte Kwinter on December 15 requesting all the reports be released but has received no response.

"An undercover officer could conceivably do some very serious things with these laws,'' he says. Specifically, they could deal in forged passports, fake art and falsely tax-stamped tobacco, possess illegal firearms and ingest drugs, including addictive ones. The law only stops short at allowing officers to violate someone's sexual integrity or cause bodily harm.

In the case of the 1905 Queen East bust, Rev. William Palmer of the church believes the narcs were the converted "brother and sister'' who hung around the cannabis-friendly enclave and partook in the sacrament. "They had to [smoke]," says Palmer, a legal medical pot user who was charged with trafficking, conspiracy to traffic and production for the purpose of trafficking. It was, he says, the only way they could maintain their cover.

At the Toronto Police Service, spokesperson Mark Pugash doesn't deny officers may have used these laws to infiltrate the church. "Undoubtedly, this is an issue that will come out in court," he says.

Pugash won't say if the two officers investigating the church were given permission to inhale cannabis by Chief William Blair prior to deployment or afterwards. "Our undercover operations focus on officer safety and the law. There are very clear policies, but I'm not going to discuss specifics."

The case involved 22 arrestees, including four Health Canada federal med pot exemptees, 151 marijuana plants and pounds of cannabis, hashish and olive oil. Police allege the Health Canada exemption holders were well over their legal limits for possessing and growing.

The police press release states, "They hid behind the issuance of a medicinal marijuana possession permit as a method of selling large quantities of marijuana for monetary gain."

The arrestees say they welcomed the two whom they now believe to be narcs, though the pair became heretics when they complained about the absence of Christian symbols of reverence in church proceedings. Interestingly, during the bust the cops grabbed all the grow books and left the Torah and Bible behind.

 

Buzzby

I didn't know that possession of olive oil was illegal in Canada! Do they have a lot of underground Italian restaurants?

Why would anyone care if the undercover cops took a few tokes? You can't be undercover unless you blend in with the folks you're investigating. It's not like they did anything that could be construed as hurting another person.

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lilgrasshoppah

If the government can't enforce the laws against marijuana, and stay within the law to do it, the LAW MUST FALL. Does the government have to create child porn to bust pedophile rings? Do they have to drive drunk to stop drunk drivers? Do they have to break and enter to stop thieves? Boost car stereos and hubcaps to overthrow chop shops?

The government encroaches on enough of our rights and freedoms already with the drug war. Is it not enough that they place the sick and dying under threat; that they imprison people needlessly and senselessly; that, through their actions, people are injured and killed; that the precious foundations for our democracies are eroded and erased...? And, all of that when the government at least PRETENDS to have respect for the law! What will happen once the government gets the green light to violate the law to keep the law in force!

The government being above the law is the essence of tyranny. If you tolerate tyranny, soon tyrants will rule you. Oh, and to answer your last question... I'm pretty sure all the members of the Church, whom the Narks arrested, were harmed by them breaking the law...?

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I got soul, But i'm not a soldier - The Killers

king cola

Yea but what the civilians were doing with the pot could also be seen as not hurting or bothering anyone but they came in to investigate and make busts because they were smoking pot. How could undercovers tell you not to do it once they make their bust but do the samething? It didn't say anything about the church group dealing, they would get together and smoke. Just because it wasn't 5 people passing a joint around but a larger group they felt they needed undercover cops to investigate people smoking? They were just doing their job because it's illegal but they did something illegal themselves, but it's a good example of a stupid law costing tax payers money.

I know what you mean by saying they are undercover and need to probably take a few hits to fit in and not look suspicious.

What if a off duty cop was smoking pot with some people and a on duty officer caught them? He could argue and say he was undercover to catch them in the act to bust them.

Buzzby

Why? In order to investigate criminal organizations, sometimes the only way to gain access is to look like a criminal. In order to investigate drug rings, undercover officers buy drugs. Why does it bother you so much that they smoke a bit of weed?

No, but none of those are analogous to undercover drug ring investigations or any other kind of undercover investigations. In order to bust child porn rings, undercover officers do buy child porn and act like they enjoy it.

As the article states, there are well-established rules about what undercover officers can and cannot do in the process of investigating crimes.

I don't follow your line of thought. How did the officers' smoking harm those arrested? Whatever "harm" they suffered was the result of their getting caught in illegal activities, not from the officers' maintenance of their undercover personas. Extending your line of thought (which I don't understand), no one should ever get arrested for anything because it "harms" them.

 

lilgrasshoppah

Democracy only ever works if "all men are created equal". If you have an explicitly hierarchal society where certain classes have have rights and freedoms than others, what you have there is tyranny. And if you have a society where the police can freely break the laws they are meant to enforce, what you have then is a police state.

As the article states, there are well-established rules about what undercover officers can and cannot do in the process of investigating crimes.

Because, the police never lobby for more power, nor encroach on established civil rights, nor become corrupt, nor (even) make mistakes. They should not only be our kings, but our high priests as well.

Actually, I don't follow your line of thought. The only question you CAN ask (if you want change... you do want change, right?) is, "what did the church members do, that caused harm?

The conceit of drug prohibition is that drugs are so dangerous to health and society, that we have to surrender certain civil rights to protect people and society from the dangers. If marijuana smoking was soooo bad, how could the narks participate in using it... and (a) be able to give reliable testimony, and (b) not have to spend weeks in the hospital, recovering?

What we have here, is the government interfering with a group of private citizens, engaging in an essentially harmless expression of their religious beliefs. I don't understand why you're okay with that.

Buzzby

That might be the only question you can ask, but the relevant question to this discussion is "what did the church members do that violated the law". The legislature makes the laws. The police investigate violations of those laws and apprehend violators. The courts determine the innocence or guilt of those accused.

Those are issues for the legislators, not the police.

What we have here is a police department enforcing the laws that the legislature has put on the books. I disagree with those laws and am working to change them.

This discussion is not about whether drug laws are good laws. Personally, I believe that all drug laws should be rescinded and competent adults should be able to do whatever they want as long as it hurts no one else. Prohibition doesn't work, never has worked, and never will work. All it does is drive drug use underground, empower organized crime, raise prices, and prevent any kind of quality control.

This discussion is about whether or not undercover officers should be able to violate the law in minor ways in order to apprehend more major violators. Until the laws are changed, police departments have no choice but to enforce them. In many cases that involves undercover investigations and undercover investigations sometimes require officers to violate laws in order to maintain their covers.

Your position seems to be that the police shouldn't enforce the laws because you disagree with them. I think that's absurd.

lilgrasshoppah

There is no king, there is the Law. Law which is the product of learned, rational, argument; and responsive to the will of the People. Simple, straightfoward; and I hope I'm not coming across as patronizing...? But, what does that mean "a nation of laws"? Who is subject to the law?

In a word, "everybody."

The key word is enforce. I think the police should enforce the law. Especially laws designed to prevent crime. But if they enforce the law, they can't break the law to do it. That sort of hypocrisy breeds contempt. How is it minor for undercover cops to use weed? That's what they're throwing all those church members in jail for. If it's not a crime for cops to do it, it's not a crime for civilians to do it.

I agree with you, that we should be absolutely free of drug prohibition... especially becuase I know, as I'm sure you do, that all drug prohibition came into force without properly consulting the will of the People, without learned, rational arguments... in fact prohibition has always stood for an assault against democracy, liberty and human dignity.

Because I have such contempt for drug laws, I find it hard to tolerate when the drug cops can't color within the generous lines afforded them by the law.

What developments in the last 70 years of marijuana prohibition leads you to believe that the antidrug cops, in general, will practice restraint? When have they done less than allowed by law? When, indeed, have they NOT pushed as hard as they could against the law? We live in a time of no-knock raids, of warrantless wiretaps, of mandatory student drug tests, of alarmist politicians crying that we need to surrender our freedom so they can make us safe, of the PATRIOT ACT II, of racial profiling, of the erosion of the writ of habeus corpus, of 750,000 arrests for weed alone. The police have lots of leeway to prosecute cannabis infractions. But, who does it serve to allow the cops to be above the law? The cops? How is that not the seed for a police state?

Buzzby

You are, to put it simply, wrong. Part of the body of law of which you speak includes provisions for what undercover police officers may and may not do in pursuit of the perpetrators of crime. As it says in the orginal article:If bank robbers are speeding away from the bank doing 100 mph in a 35 mph zone, the pursuing officers don't have to stay below 35. By your logic that's exactly what they'd have to do. If underground police officers infiltrate a terrorist cell, following your logic they wouldn't be allowed to plot along with the terrorists because that would be "conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism".

To be more precise (and the law is very precise), they are throwing the church members in jail for possessing and distributing marijuana, not using it.

As pointed out in the above quote from the original article, under the law police officers can violate statutes in certain circumstances.

I agree. That's why I'm working to get the laws changed. I'm not blaming police officers for doing their jobs.

As I've pointed out repeatedly, they were operating within the generous lines afforded them by the law.

That is an entirely different issue than the one we've been discussing.

Frequently. As phuzz01 and Niteshift have told us, they often let people go with a warning and the confiscation of their weed when they could have arrested them.

lilgrasshoppah

This argument goes right to the nature of prohibition.

What would you permit cops to do to enforce a law? To what extent can they break the law? What if they had to beat somebody up to maintain cover? Steal something? Kill an animal? Kill a human being? What if this church believed that sex with minors was their sacrament? Would you permit the cops to do, to preserve their cover? Imagine "I'm only getting the blow job to prove she's a prostitute!" I'm not being frivolous, and I'm not using reductio ad absurdum... these are serious concerns. Where do you draw a distinction between what a cop can do, and what he can't?

Oh, we won't allow them to commit actual crimes? PRECISELY! Pot smoking isn't an actual crime! Prohibition has invented a series of acts it calls crimes... really offenses. It's grafted a whole poisonous tree onto root of Law. The only way to prosecute marijuana offenders is by committing equivalent offenses, by lying, by pushing legal boundaries, by relying on bad precedent to mask unconstitutional edicts. So instead of applauding them when they behave in PRECISELY the manner that I disapprove, I findd it a better use of my time to question them. Question why they must break the law to uphold the law. Question why they are not perturbed by the inconsistancy. Question why only they are exempt from Canada's pot laws.

That word, "offence"... it offends me. You see, a criminal who commits a crime is commiting it against a person. He's stolen something from somebody, or raped somebody, or assaulted somebody, or killed somebody. The roles are clearly defined: criminal... victim.

An "offense" harkens back to feudalism... where a lord could enforce any law he had the will to enforce, simply because he had the physical power to do so. A criminal was wrong, not because she commited a clearly defined crime, or because she had clearly defined victims... but because she violated "the king's peace". Hence, witch hunts. A woman could be convicted of witchcraft on the most circumstantial of evidence. Thousands lost their lives to a whimsical law, whimsically created, and whimsically applied. Shall we applaud that, or excuse that, or what?

In the case of uniformed police officers in a clearly marked police cruiser in high speed pursuit of a suspect... how does that apply? One is not like the other. A reckless speeder endangers everybody on the road. If he is fleeing from a robbery, as in the example, well then he is doubly culpable because he's trying to make good on another verified CRIMINAL violation. Even so, uniformed police officers can't be reckless in their pursuit. They have to obey strict rules of engagement. If they violate those, or if an innocent is injured or killed, the officers face review and possible disciplinary action.

Again, the cops make no secret of who they are, or what they are doing. "We are law enforcement, chasing a criminal who has left victims in his wake, and who is an explicit danger to the community. That's not the case with undercover cops. What rules of engagement did they follow? Behave, for months, in the exact same way as the people you are investigating... and, after the fullness of time... arrest them for doing what you did the whole tme.

Secrecy and militarizing police forces creates a police state. I will not support such actions.