Convicted trafficker outraged after being picked up in sweep
Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Nov 24/00) - A Yellowknife resident watched friends and acquaintances being arrested and driven away in RCMP vehicles last Wednesday when police scoured the city with a list.
He watched and he laughed, he said, however that laughter soon dissipated as he, himself was picked up by RCMP.
The man, who does not want his name published, told Yellowknifer on that afternoon he left his workday as usual. He got in a cab and directed the driver to take him home.
"I opened the door of the cab and they were sitting there waiting for me (in three cop cars)," he said.
"They handcuffed me and read me my rights. I asked them if they were arresting me for something I did (two to three years ago)."
He said while in police cells he met the other suspects he watched being picked up by RCMP.
The man told Yellowknifer he had served eight months in jail for trafficking cocaine after being arrested in the spring of 1998.
He said his recent arrest was a mistake and now he is upset.
"Even to this day it is just a harassment thing. I know I made a mistake," said the clean-cut looking 21-year-old of his former conviction.
"I just got off probation in April and since then I've just been working and didn't get myself back into anything."
The Yellowknife-born resident said he got caught up in the money-making aspect of the drug trade and didn't use cocaine himself.
He feels last week's arrest was very visible, and it comes after months of attempting to shed layers of embarrassment he caused to himself and his family.
As the police shackled him and led him into the back of their patrol car he said his 19-year-old sister watched from the doorway of his home.
"She came out the door and I told her it was OK, to go back in the house," he said.
He was taken to the RCMP detachment where he waited six hours. They finger-printed him and then let him go, dismissing the charges, which he believes were for trafficking cocaine.
The man said he went peacefully but police say others did not. On the day that RCMP started arresting people off a list of names they accumulated over a year-long drug investigation, some were arrested at gunpoint. Before the arrested man learned of his own fate that day he witnessed a somewhat volatile situation in the Centre Square Mall parking lot.
"A guy was parked but they cut him off anyway. An officer walked up to the driver's side and then the other cop comes whipping around to the other window pointing a gun in it.
"I think they've just been watching too much Cops on channel 15."
But Staff Sgt. Dave Grundy doesn't share that view and doesn't make any apology for those kinds of arrests.
"There was some people arrested at gunpoint." Grundy said.
"Some people tried to run and some people tried to fight ... but police are accountable to the justice system.
"We know some of these people carry guns and safety is not only to protect the police but other people who are bystanders," he added.
"You have to understand that these people are selling drugs to our children."
Under the Criminal Code of Canada police are able to use as much force as necessary in arresting someone on a warrant.
"Did we get into all out fist fights with anyone? I don't believe so," he said.
Meanwhile, the Yellowknife man that was released said he is not going to just forget about his ordeal.
Whether it was a mistake or not, "something's going to come out of this," he said.
