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25/05/07, Vasconcelo Quadros, Reação parte de setores acostumados à corrupção, Source.
25/05/07, CP, B.C. Ferries reaches out-of-court deal with TSB to view ferry sinking evidence, Source.
26/05/07, Gary Mason, Mind-boggling testimony leaves everyone at inquest exhausted, Source.
24/05/07, Scott Sutherland, Family lawyer of Ian Bush believes he was targeted by RCMP, Source.
25/05/07, Gary Mason, What delayed body's trip to morgue?, Source.
25/05/07, CP, B.C. Ferries reaches out-of-court deal with TSB to view ferry sinking evidence, (Back).
VICTORIA — B.C. Ferries and the Transportation Safety Board have reached an out-of-court deal that allows the company to view what could be a key piece of evidence linked to the sinking of the Queen of the North in March 2006.
B.C. Ferries president David Hahn said he expected to receive a copy of the Queen of the North's electronic system hard drive late Friday that was retrieved earlier from the sunken vessel.
"We've struck a deal where they've given us the data," he said. "We will work with it and we've agreed under a temporary basis to not release the information to the public."
B.C. Ferries filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court asking the court to order the board to turn over the hard drive information to the company.
He said the company has not dropped the lawsuit and it may release the hard-drive information at a later date.
"We do reserve the right to go back to court," Mr. Hahn said. "Our petition remains in place."
The hard-drive information may help B.C. Ferries determine what happen on March 22, 2006, when the ferry hit an island at full speed and sank with 101 people on board.
"We're more interested in having access to the data and really digging through and finding what's embedded in there and doing our own investigative work with it," Mr. Hahn said.
Two passengers on board the Queen of the North are missing and presumed dead.
B.C. Ferries recently fired three employees who were responsible for the bridge area of the ferry on the night it sank.
A report by B.C. Ferries concluded the three employees, second officer Keven Hilton, fourth officer Karl Lilgert and quartermaster Karen Bricker, were not maintaining a proper watch when the Queen of the North ran into Gil Island near Prince Rupert.
The B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers Union is expected to appeal the three firings.
The TSB is expected to release its report into the ferry sinking within weeks.
The RCMP is still investigating the incident.
Mr. Hahn said B.C. Ferries needs to look at the data on the electronic hard drive to properly assess the findings of a draft report into the sinking compiled by the TSB.
"I only want to get to the bottom line as to what happened that night," he said.
26/05/07, Gary Mason, Mind-boggling testimony leaves everyone at inquest exhausted, (Back).
It finally was too much for Dawson Bush. Standing outside the community hall where the inquest into the RCMP shooting death of his son had been under way all week, Mr. Bush's stoic facade began to crumble.
“For my side of the family, there's no more Bushes now,” said Mr. Bush as he began to cry. “The death of Ian was the end of the line. That's it. That's it.”
He bent his head and put his hand to his face. He threw his cigarette to the ground. The reporters who surrounded him didn't know what to say. Such a private, personal moment being played out in such a public way. What do you say? Mr. Bush ended the awkward silence.
“I'm sorry,” said Dawson, grabbing his handkerchief and blowing his nose. “I'm still very angry.”
While Mr. Bush talked outside, Linda Bush, who had divorced him years ago, was holed up in a lunch room inside the community centre with her sister, Kate. She wasn't in any state to face the cameras. The week of testimony, the gruesome details of her son's last seconds on earth, had been too much for her also. Making it even harder was the fact her daughters, Anni and Rene, her two rocks all week, weren't by her side Friday.
Rene was graduating from nursing school. There would be a big ceremony. She would receive her nursing pin. Anni had gone to watch her sister cross the stage.
But her mother wouldn't be there, nor her father. They were sticking around to be at the inquest into the death of their son. The one who should have been at his sister's graduation ceremony, too.
Inside the inquest, the testimony of those on the stand continued to boggle the mind.
It was learned Friday that the day after Constable Paul Koester shot Ian Bush in the local RCMP lockup, he had spent four hours with the RCMP's lead investigators on the case crafting a mandatory two-page Duty to Account statement. That statement is supposed to be a brief description by the officer of the circumstances leading to the death of the man in his custody.
Howard Rubin, lawyer for the Bush family, couldn't quite believe that the officers investigating Mr. Bush's death – along with an RCMP lawyer – would be allowed to help Constable Koester draft such an important statement.
“This is unbelievable in my submission?” Mr. Rubin said.
There was other testimony.
Corporal Don Stone testified that he told paramedics who arrived on the scene to attend to the scrapes and bruises Constable Koester had suffered during the attack not to ask him any questions about what happened. The reason, he said, was because first and foremost, he was a police officer, and if Constable Koester had started talking about what happened it would make the other office a “compellable” witness if the matter ever ended up in court.
Why he couldn't have left the room while the paramedics asked the officer about his injuries to carry out a more thorough exam was never made clear.
In some respects, it was the evidence of Constable Darren Woroshelo that was the most astonishing.
Constable Woroshelo had trained Constable Koester. Constable Koester considered Constable Woroshelo his mentor. And it was Constable Woroshelo who, according to his statement read in court, told Constable Koester shortly after the shooting that he was “proud of you for being the one who's still alive ... sometimes you have to do what you have to do.”
But beyond knowing that Ian Bush had been killed, Constable Woroshelo hadn't been told what had happened in the interview room.
“Isn't it a problem that the police always assume that the officer is the victim?” Mr. Rubin asked Constable Woroshelo.
“The first rule of police work is to go home at the end of your shift,” the constable replied.
As for RCMP policy around matters central to this case, Mr. Rubin and the constable clashed there as well. Shouldn't the video machine have been on when Constable Koester was explaining the Promise to Appear statement and getting date of birth information? Not necessarily, said Constable Woroshelo, because that information isn't really considered a statement and you only turn on the video machine when you're taping a statement.
Isn't it RCMP policy that you lock up your gun when you are alone with a suspect? No, said the constable, he never locks his up when he's alone with a suspect.
The only thing that was clear was that there didn't seem to be any hard and fast rules in the RCMP when it came to dealing with prisoners. According to Constable Woroshelo, it was usually up to the officer how a prisoner was handled.
By the end of the day, most people attending the inquest were exhausted. It had been one of those weeks – draining. The inquest was adjourned until July 3, when it will continue until its conclusion.
Linda Bush looked exhausted when she faced the cameras for one last time before leaving for Prince George to be with her graduating daughter. She thought the inquest had provided many answers, but not the most important one – what happened to her son.
“I still don't understand how it [the officer's story] could possibly be the truth,” she said.
“I just don't.”
24/05/07, Scott Sutherland, Family lawyer of Ian Bush believes he was targeted by RCMP, (Back).
HOUSTON, B.C. — The lawyer for the family of a man fatally shot by police said Thursday it appears RCMP were targeting Ian Bush when he was arrested with an open beer.
Howard Rubin said Mr. Bush was among a crowd of people outside the hockey arena in this northwestern B.C. community yet he was the only one to get a ticket.
“There's no other tickets,” Mr. Rubin said outside a coroner's inquest into Mr. Bush's death.
“There's beer that's seized. They just go for Ian. He's a person that's at the back of the crowd when that happens. They acknowledge that he was just holding someone's beer at one point.”
Constable Paul Koester said he was fighting for his life when he shot Mr. Bush, 22, in a struggle at the RCMP detachment Oct. 29, 2005.
The New Westminster, B.C., police investigated the shooting and concluded Constable Koester shouldn't be charged.
The public outcry that followed prompted B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal to make some details of the shooting public.
Mr. Oppal said Constable Koester was acting in self-defence.
The inquest heard Wednesday that Constable Koester asked his safety officer whether he should go ahead with a charge of obstruction against Mr. Bush for twice giving him a false name.
The officer said Mr. Bush had previous encounters with police, including an incident where he fled police and dumped his vehicle and was believed to have been intoxicated.
“That's not the way you do things,” Mr. Rubin said. “You don't take a person to the detachment and teach him a lesson just because he may have been a person in a previous investigation. I mean they didn't charge him.
“But I think that was part of the reason that they were targeting him.”
Mr. Rubin said Constable Koester had given Mr. Bush a ticket before “so where he said he didn't know him it might not be true that he doesn't know him.”
Mr. Bush did not have a criminal record.
Pathologist Dr. John Stefanelli told the inquest Mr. Bush probably died instantly when he was shot. Dr. Stefanelli said the post mortem showed a gun had been partially pressed to Mr. Bush's head. The bullet tumbled through his brain, lodging inside above Mr. Bush's eyebrows.
He said he couldn't determine whether bruising around Mr. Bush's eyes was as a result of the bullet wound or of the fracturing of his skull by the bullet or whether he had been struck in the face.
There were also three circular lacerations near the entrance wound, consistent with evidence from Constable Koester that he struck Mr. Bush, 22, with the pistol before pulling the trigger.
Dr. Stefanelli said Mr. Bush's body was never refrigerated before he did the autopsy and had started to decompose, which he called “problematic.” He said the decomposition did not affect his determination of the cause of death but “it could have masked some bruising” that he said may be clouded by decomposition.
Mr. Rubin, under cross-examination, pointed to Dr. Stefanelli's failure to completely examine a bruise found on Mr. Bush's left inner thigh. Constable Koester testified Wednesday that putting a knee in a suspect's groin was a submission technique that RCMP officers are trained to use. Constable Koester said he did not remember using such a technique or kneeing Mr. Bush in the groin.
25/05/07, Gary Mason, What delayed body's trip to morgue?, (Back).
HOUSTON, B.C. -- By the time Ian Bush's body was delivered to pathologist John Stefanelli for autopsy, it had already started to decompose. Not a surprise, really, given that the victim lay in the RCMP detachment where he had been killed for almost two days before he was shipped off to the morgue in Kamloops for examination.
No one has really been able to explain why the RCMP took so long to move Mr. Bush's body, other than to say it couldn't be touched before the crime scene had been thoroughly swept by forensic experts.
Dr. Stefanelli said three days was an unusually long time to wait for a body; not unprecedented, but unusual nonetheless. Decomposition can make an autopsy much tougher to perform, the doctor said. The pooling of blood can sometimes mask injuries, particularly bruises.
And this was something Howard Rubin, the Bush family lawyer, was determined to drill home with the jury at the inquest into Mr. Bush's death. You see, what Mr. Rubin has been not so subtly suggesting here is that the RCMP used several occasions to buy themselves time to come up with a plausible explanation, a storyline, whatever you want to call it, for what happened to Mr. Bush.
An explanation that differed from what really happened.
Why did Constable Paul Koester, the man who shot Mr. Bush, take three weeks to produce a final statement about what happened? Why did the Mounties take months after that before they officially interviewed him? Why did the police take so long to deliver the body to the morgue?
Was it because the Mounties were in the process of dreaming up some alibi? Finding a way to tailor the evidence in such a way that Constable Koester avoids being criminally tried?
Dr. Stefanelli provided Mr. Rubin with more ammunition for his conspiracy theory.
It turns out that two RCMP officers were in the room when Dr. Stefanelli conducted the autopsy. One was Sergeant Chuck Duncan, an RCMP forensic identification expert who testified earlier at the inquest. The other was Corporal Blain Hawkins, whose specific role with the force was not spelled out yesterday.
During the examination, Dr. Stefanelli said the officers bounced different scenarios off him. As the doctor described it at the inquest, the officers were saying things like: "Could he have been in front of him when he shot him? Could he have been behind or lying on the floor? They discussed different scenarios in general terms."
Really.
"By doing this, it would allow the police to tailor their evidence wouldn't it?" Mr. Rubin asked.
"I suppose that's true, yes," Dr. Stefanelli said.
The other aspect of the examination that Mr. Rubin spent time on was Dr. Stefanelli's decision not to mention in his original report what appeared to be a large - three-inch by six-inch - bruise on the inside upper thigh of Mr. Bush's left leg.
Mr. Rubin told the inquest he believes this mark could have been caused by Constable Koester kneeing Mr. Bush in the groin area.
During the autopsy, one of the RCMP officers in the room suggested to Dr. Stefanelli that the mark might have come from the officer trying to "pinch" Mr. Bush in an effort to restrain him. Later, in a subsequent e-mail filed with the inquiry that Dr. Stefanelli sent to lawyers involved in this case, he said he considered the dark, bruised area some sort of infection.
He said he didn't think it could have been a bruise caused by a "pinching" action. However, when Mr. Rubin told the inquiry that he showed an autopsy photo of the injury to Dr. John Butt, one of the world's leading pathologists and one of Dr. Stefanelli's teachers at university, he told Mr. Rubin he thought it was definitely a bruise.
Dr. Stefanelli said he had intended to do a more detailed examination of the area by getting a tissue sample but forgot.
The rest of Dr. Stefanelli's testimony was spent talking about the massive injury caused by the bullet that entered the back of Mr. Bush's head, as well as the other head injuries that were evident and apparently caused by the circular end of Constable Koester's gun. He said there were other cuts and scratches on Mr. Bush's head and shoulder, and swelling and bruising under both eyes.
Constable Koester testified on Wednesday he couldn't remember hitting Mr. Bush during the fight in the RCMP detachment other than with the head of his gun on the top of the head.
For most of Dr. Stefanelli's testimony, Ian Bush's mother, Linda, sat in the same seat in the front row she has occupied all week.
Her eyes were closed for most of the doctor's testimony. Listening to someone describe dissecting the lifeless body of someone you love in such cold, clinical terms must be horrible. About the only good news she heard all day was when Dr. Stefanelli was asked how long Mr. Bush might have lived after he was shot. His death, the doctor said, would have been instantaneous.
(Back)
25/05/07, CP, B.C. Ferries reaches out-of-court deal with TSB to view ferry sinking evidence, Source.
26/05/07, Gary Mason, Mind-boggling testimony leaves everyone at inquest exhausted, Source.
24/05/07, Scott Sutherland, Family lawyer of Ian Bush believes he was targeted by RCMP, Source.
25/05/07, Gary Mason, What delayed body's trip to morgue?, Source.
| 25/05/07, Vasconcelo Quadros, Reação parte de setores acostumados à corrupção (Back) | Vasconcelo Quadros in the Jornal do Brasil Reaction from sectors accustomed to corruption | |
| Brasília. A Polícia Federal atribui as restrições às prisões e desdobramentos da Operação Navalha a uma reação de grupos privilegiados da política brasileira, que estavam habituados à corrupção e sempre se sentiram impunes ou fora do alcance da lei. O diretor da PF, Paulo Lacerda, não quis dar entrevistas, mas as entidades que representam os policiais federais saíram em defesa da corporação. | Brasilia (Brazilian capital). The Federal Police (FP) attribute restrictions on arrests and on the unfolding Operation Razor to a reaction by privileged groups in Brazilian politics, who are accustomed to corruption and always feel impunity or outside the reach of the law. The director of the FP, Paulo Lacerda, would not give interviews, but groups representing the federal police came out in defence of the organization. | |
| Ontem, condenaram manifestações de políticos, afirmaram que as investigações são respaldadas pelo Judiciário e pela Constituição e avisaram que novas operações continuarão a alcançar políticos e autoridades de primeiro escalão. | Yesterday, they condemned the public statements of the politicians, affirming that the investigations are supported by the Judiciary and by the Constitution, and advised that new operations are continuing to reach politicians and authorities of the first rank. | |
| - O processo de combate à corrupção é irreversível. As investigações serão aprofundadas porque essa é a expectativa da sociedade - disse o presidente da Associação Nacional dos Delegados da Polícia Federal, Sandro Torres Avelar. - Tudo está sendo feito dentro da lei, com o acompanhamento do Ministério Público e da Justiça, que expede os mandados de prisão. | "The process of combatting corruption is irreversible. The investigations will go deeper because this is the expectation of society," said the president of the National Association of Chiefs of the Federal police, Sandro Torres Avelar. "Everything is being done within the law, with the involvement of the Public and Justice Ministries, who issue arrest warrants." | |
| Já Cláudio Avelar, presidente do Sindicato dos Policiais Federais do Distrito Federal, declarou que os protestos decorrem do fato de a Operação Navalha investigar grupos poderosos e não só o baixo clero do Congresso. | Already, Cláudio Avelar, president of the Union of Federal Police in the Federal District, declared that the protests come from the fact that Operation Razor is investigating powerful groups and not just the low clergy of Congress. | |
| - O problema é que a polícia mudou, está mexendo com recursos ilícitos e seguindo os rastros do dinheiro da corrupção - disse Avelar. - A Polícia Federal incomoda porque está pegando os corruptos no Executivo, no Judiciário e no Legislativo. Não haverá recuo. | "The problem is that the police changed, they are mixing in illicit resources and following the trail of corrupt money," said Avelar. "The Federal Police are upsetting people because they are taking corrupt people in the Executive, the Judiciary, and the Legislature. There will be no retreat." | |
| A assessoria de comunicação da Polícia Federal emitiu nota oficial no fim da tarde de ontem, cujo teor serve para responder tanto as críticas do ministro Gilmar Mendes, do Supremo Tribunal Federal, quanto a determinação do presidente Lula, que mandou apurar eventuais excessos na Operação Navalha. No texto, a PF alega que age com "respeito e acatamento" às ordens do Judiciário e, especificamente, do STF. | The communications office of the Federal Police released an official note at the end of the afternoon yesterday, which responded both to criticisms by Gilmar Mendes, the Minister of the Supreme Federal Court (STF), and to the order of President Lula to clarify possible excesses in Operation Razor. In the text, the FP assert that they act with "respect and deference" to the orders of the Judiciary, and, specifically, the STF. | |
| "Não cabe manifestação sobre a opinião pessoal de um de seus ilustres membros", é um dos trechos da nota. Mendes, que concedeu habeas corpus a presos pela Operação Navalha, telefonou ao delegado Paulo Lacerda na quarta-feira para reclamar da inclusão de um homônimo dele na lista de beneficiários de mimos do dono da Gautama, Zuleido Veras. Indignado, disse que a PF estaria tentando intimidá-lo. Classificou de "canalha" tal artimanha. | "We are not responding to the personal opinions of one of your illustrious members," is one passage from the note. Mendes, who granted Habeas Corpus to those arrested by Operation Razor, called Paulo Lacerda by telephone on Wednesday to complain that a name which sounded like his was in the list of those receiving gifts from the manager of Gautama, Zuleido Veras. He was indignant, and said that the FP were trying to intimidate him. He called such tactics, 'vile'. | |
| Na nota, a Polícia Federal ressalta ainda que está submetida a controles institucionais e elogia a ministra Eliana Calmon, do Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ), que determinou as prisões, e o procurador-geral da República, Antonio Fernando de Souza, que acompanhou as investigações e fará as denúncias contra Zuleido Veras e outros acusados de participar do esquema de fraude em licitações. | In the note, the Federal Police reasserted that they are abiding by institutional controls and praised Minister Eliana Calmon of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) who decided on the arrest warrants, and the Solicitor General of the Republic, Antonio Fernando de Souza, who followed the investigations and denounced Zuleido Veras and others of the accused of participating in the fraudulent contracts scheme. | |
| Sobre a ordem do presidente de mandar apurar denúncia de excessos, a assessoria da PF declarou que qualquer cidadão que se sentir prejudicado pode pedir uma apuração. Entre os sindicalistas havia uma certeza e duas interpretações: as investigações vão avançar e as reações representam uma tentativa de enquadrar politicamente a PF e seu diretor, Paulo Lacerda. Um dos assessores do delegado afirmou que "ninguém terá a ousadia de tentar manietar" o órgão. Policiais que conhecem bem Lacerda apostam que ele não se sujeitará às pressões. | According to the order of President Lula to clear up excesses, the communications office of the FP said that any citizen who felt unjustly treated could request a clarification. Among the union members there was certainty on two interpretations: the investigations will go ahead; and the reactions are an attempt to politically isolate the FP and its director, Paulo Lacerda. One of the Chief's staff affirmed that "no one will dare to attempt to rein them in." Police who know Lacerda well bet that he will not submit to such pressures. |
25/05/07, CP, B.C. Ferries reaches out-of-court deal with TSB to view ferry sinking evidence, (Back).
VICTORIA — B.C. Ferries and the Transportation Safety Board have reached an out-of-court deal that allows the company to view what could be a key piece of evidence linked to the sinking of the Queen of the North in March 2006.
B.C. Ferries president David Hahn said he expected to receive a copy of the Queen of the North's electronic system hard drive late Friday that was retrieved earlier from the sunken vessel.
"We've struck a deal where they've given us the data," he said. "We will work with it and we've agreed under a temporary basis to not release the information to the public."
B.C. Ferries filed a lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court asking the court to order the board to turn over the hard drive information to the company.
He said the company has not dropped the lawsuit and it may release the hard-drive information at a later date.
"We do reserve the right to go back to court," Mr. Hahn said. "Our petition remains in place."
The hard-drive information may help B.C. Ferries determine what happen on March 22, 2006, when the ferry hit an island at full speed and sank with 101 people on board.
"We're more interested in having access to the data and really digging through and finding what's embedded in there and doing our own investigative work with it," Mr. Hahn said.
Two passengers on board the Queen of the North are missing and presumed dead.
B.C. Ferries recently fired three employees who were responsible for the bridge area of the ferry on the night it sank.
A report by B.C. Ferries concluded the three employees, second officer Keven Hilton, fourth officer Karl Lilgert and quartermaster Karen Bricker, were not maintaining a proper watch when the Queen of the North ran into Gil Island near Prince Rupert.
The B.C. Ferry and Marine Workers Union is expected to appeal the three firings.
The TSB is expected to release its report into the ferry sinking within weeks.
The RCMP is still investigating the incident.
Mr. Hahn said B.C. Ferries needs to look at the data on the electronic hard drive to properly assess the findings of a draft report into the sinking compiled by the TSB.
"I only want to get to the bottom line as to what happened that night," he said.
26/05/07, Gary Mason, Mind-boggling testimony leaves everyone at inquest exhausted, (Back).
It finally was too much for Dawson Bush. Standing outside the community hall where the inquest into the RCMP shooting death of his son had been under way all week, Mr. Bush's stoic facade began to crumble.
“For my side of the family, there's no more Bushes now,” said Mr. Bush as he began to cry. “The death of Ian was the end of the line. That's it. That's it.”
He bent his head and put his hand to his face. He threw his cigarette to the ground. The reporters who surrounded him didn't know what to say. Such a private, personal moment being played out in such a public way. What do you say? Mr. Bush ended the awkward silence.
“I'm sorry,” said Dawson, grabbing his handkerchief and blowing his nose. “I'm still very angry.”
While Mr. Bush talked outside, Linda Bush, who had divorced him years ago, was holed up in a lunch room inside the community centre with her sister, Kate. She wasn't in any state to face the cameras. The week of testimony, the gruesome details of her son's last seconds on earth, had been too much for her also. Making it even harder was the fact her daughters, Anni and Rene, her two rocks all week, weren't by her side Friday.
Rene was graduating from nursing school. There would be a big ceremony. She would receive her nursing pin. Anni had gone to watch her sister cross the stage.
But her mother wouldn't be there, nor her father. They were sticking around to be at the inquest into the death of their son. The one who should have been at his sister's graduation ceremony, too.
Inside the inquest, the testimony of those on the stand continued to boggle the mind.
It was learned Friday that the day after Constable Paul Koester shot Ian Bush in the local RCMP lockup, he had spent four hours with the RCMP's lead investigators on the case crafting a mandatory two-page Duty to Account statement. That statement is supposed to be a brief description by the officer of the circumstances leading to the death of the man in his custody.
Howard Rubin, lawyer for the Bush family, couldn't quite believe that the officers investigating Mr. Bush's death – along with an RCMP lawyer – would be allowed to help Constable Koester draft such an important statement.
“This is unbelievable in my submission?” Mr. Rubin said.
There was other testimony.
Corporal Don Stone testified that he told paramedics who arrived on the scene to attend to the scrapes and bruises Constable Koester had suffered during the attack not to ask him any questions about what happened. The reason, he said, was because first and foremost, he was a police officer, and if Constable Koester had started talking about what happened it would make the other office a “compellable” witness if the matter ever ended up in court.
Why he couldn't have left the room while the paramedics asked the officer about his injuries to carry out a more thorough exam was never made clear.
In some respects, it was the evidence of Constable Darren Woroshelo that was the most astonishing.
Constable Woroshelo had trained Constable Koester. Constable Koester considered Constable Woroshelo his mentor. And it was Constable Woroshelo who, according to his statement read in court, told Constable Koester shortly after the shooting that he was “proud of you for being the one who's still alive ... sometimes you have to do what you have to do.”
But beyond knowing that Ian Bush had been killed, Constable Woroshelo hadn't been told what had happened in the interview room.
“Isn't it a problem that the police always assume that the officer is the victim?” Mr. Rubin asked Constable Woroshelo.
“The first rule of police work is to go home at the end of your shift,” the constable replied.
As for RCMP policy around matters central to this case, Mr. Rubin and the constable clashed there as well. Shouldn't the video machine have been on when Constable Koester was explaining the Promise to Appear statement and getting date of birth information? Not necessarily, said Constable Woroshelo, because that information isn't really considered a statement and you only turn on the video machine when you're taping a statement.
Isn't it RCMP policy that you lock up your gun when you are alone with a suspect? No, said the constable, he never locks his up when he's alone with a suspect.
The only thing that was clear was that there didn't seem to be any hard and fast rules in the RCMP when it came to dealing with prisoners. According to Constable Woroshelo, it was usually up to the officer how a prisoner was handled.
By the end of the day, most people attending the inquest were exhausted. It had been one of those weeks – draining. The inquest was adjourned until July 3, when it will continue until its conclusion.
Linda Bush looked exhausted when she faced the cameras for one last time before leaving for Prince George to be with her graduating daughter. She thought the inquest had provided many answers, but not the most important one – what happened to her son.
“I still don't understand how it [the officer's story] could possibly be the truth,” she said.
“I just don't.”
24/05/07, Scott Sutherland, Family lawyer of Ian Bush believes he was targeted by RCMP, (Back).
HOUSTON, B.C. — The lawyer for the family of a man fatally shot by police said Thursday it appears RCMP were targeting Ian Bush when he was arrested with an open beer.
Howard Rubin said Mr. Bush was among a crowd of people outside the hockey arena in this northwestern B.C. community yet he was the only one to get a ticket.
“There's no other tickets,” Mr. Rubin said outside a coroner's inquest into Mr. Bush's death.
“There's beer that's seized. They just go for Ian. He's a person that's at the back of the crowd when that happens. They acknowledge that he was just holding someone's beer at one point.”
Constable Paul Koester said he was fighting for his life when he shot Mr. Bush, 22, in a struggle at the RCMP detachment Oct. 29, 2005.
The New Westminster, B.C., police investigated the shooting and concluded Constable Koester shouldn't be charged.
The public outcry that followed prompted B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal to make some details of the shooting public.
Mr. Oppal said Constable Koester was acting in self-defence.
The inquest heard Wednesday that Constable Koester asked his safety officer whether he should go ahead with a charge of obstruction against Mr. Bush for twice giving him a false name.
The officer said Mr. Bush had previous encounters with police, including an incident where he fled police and dumped his vehicle and was believed to have been intoxicated.
“That's not the way you do things,” Mr. Rubin said. “You don't take a person to the detachment and teach him a lesson just because he may have been a person in a previous investigation. I mean they didn't charge him.
“But I think that was part of the reason that they were targeting him.”
Mr. Rubin said Constable Koester had given Mr. Bush a ticket before “so where he said he didn't know him it might not be true that he doesn't know him.”
Mr. Bush did not have a criminal record.
Pathologist Dr. John Stefanelli told the inquest Mr. Bush probably died instantly when he was shot. Dr. Stefanelli said the post mortem showed a gun had been partially pressed to Mr. Bush's head. The bullet tumbled through his brain, lodging inside above Mr. Bush's eyebrows.
He said he couldn't determine whether bruising around Mr. Bush's eyes was as a result of the bullet wound or of the fracturing of his skull by the bullet or whether he had been struck in the face.
There were also three circular lacerations near the entrance wound, consistent with evidence from Constable Koester that he struck Mr. Bush, 22, with the pistol before pulling the trigger.
Dr. Stefanelli said Mr. Bush's body was never refrigerated before he did the autopsy and had started to decompose, which he called “problematic.” He said the decomposition did not affect his determination of the cause of death but “it could have masked some bruising” that he said may be clouded by decomposition.
Mr. Rubin, under cross-examination, pointed to Dr. Stefanelli's failure to completely examine a bruise found on Mr. Bush's left inner thigh. Constable Koester testified Wednesday that putting a knee in a suspect's groin was a submission technique that RCMP officers are trained to use. Constable Koester said he did not remember using such a technique or kneeing Mr. Bush in the groin.
25/05/07, Gary Mason, What delayed body's trip to morgue?, (Back).
HOUSTON, B.C. -- By the time Ian Bush's body was delivered to pathologist John Stefanelli for autopsy, it had already started to decompose. Not a surprise, really, given that the victim lay in the RCMP detachment where he had been killed for almost two days before he was shipped off to the morgue in Kamloops for examination.
No one has really been able to explain why the RCMP took so long to move Mr. Bush's body, other than to say it couldn't be touched before the crime scene had been thoroughly swept by forensic experts.
Dr. Stefanelli said three days was an unusually long time to wait for a body; not unprecedented, but unusual nonetheless. Decomposition can make an autopsy much tougher to perform, the doctor said. The pooling of blood can sometimes mask injuries, particularly bruises.
And this was something Howard Rubin, the Bush family lawyer, was determined to drill home with the jury at the inquest into Mr. Bush's death. You see, what Mr. Rubin has been not so subtly suggesting here is that the RCMP used several occasions to buy themselves time to come up with a plausible explanation, a storyline, whatever you want to call it, for what happened to Mr. Bush.
An explanation that differed from what really happened.
Why did Constable Paul Koester, the man who shot Mr. Bush, take three weeks to produce a final statement about what happened? Why did the Mounties take months after that before they officially interviewed him? Why did the police take so long to deliver the body to the morgue?
Was it because the Mounties were in the process of dreaming up some alibi? Finding a way to tailor the evidence in such a way that Constable Koester avoids being criminally tried?
Dr. Stefanelli provided Mr. Rubin with more ammunition for his conspiracy theory.
It turns out that two RCMP officers were in the room when Dr. Stefanelli conducted the autopsy. One was Sergeant Chuck Duncan, an RCMP forensic identification expert who testified earlier at the inquest. The other was Corporal Blain Hawkins, whose specific role with the force was not spelled out yesterday.
During the examination, Dr. Stefanelli said the officers bounced different scenarios off him. As the doctor described it at the inquest, the officers were saying things like: "Could he have been in front of him when he shot him? Could he have been behind or lying on the floor? They discussed different scenarios in general terms."
Really.
"By doing this, it would allow the police to tailor their evidence wouldn't it?" Mr. Rubin asked.
"I suppose that's true, yes," Dr. Stefanelli said.
The other aspect of the examination that Mr. Rubin spent time on was Dr. Stefanelli's decision not to mention in his original report what appeared to be a large - three-inch by six-inch - bruise on the inside upper thigh of Mr. Bush's left leg.
Mr. Rubin told the inquest he believes this mark could have been caused by Constable Koester kneeing Mr. Bush in the groin area.
During the autopsy, one of the RCMP officers in the room suggested to Dr. Stefanelli that the mark might have come from the officer trying to "pinch" Mr. Bush in an effort to restrain him. Later, in a subsequent e-mail filed with the inquiry that Dr. Stefanelli sent to lawyers involved in this case, he said he considered the dark, bruised area some sort of infection.
He said he didn't think it could have been a bruise caused by a "pinching" action. However, when Mr. Rubin told the inquiry that he showed an autopsy photo of the injury to Dr. John Butt, one of the world's leading pathologists and one of Dr. Stefanelli's teachers at university, he told Mr. Rubin he thought it was definitely a bruise.
Dr. Stefanelli said he had intended to do a more detailed examination of the area by getting a tissue sample but forgot.
The rest of Dr. Stefanelli's testimony was spent talking about the massive injury caused by the bullet that entered the back of Mr. Bush's head, as well as the other head injuries that were evident and apparently caused by the circular end of Constable Koester's gun. He said there were other cuts and scratches on Mr. Bush's head and shoulder, and swelling and bruising under both eyes.
Constable Koester testified on Wednesday he couldn't remember hitting Mr. Bush during the fight in the RCMP detachment other than with the head of his gun on the top of the head.
For most of Dr. Stefanelli's testimony, Ian Bush's mother, Linda, sat in the same seat in the front row she has occupied all week.
Her eyes were closed for most of the doctor's testimony. Listening to someone describe dissecting the lifeless body of someone you love in such cold, clinical terms must be horrible. About the only good news she heard all day was when Dr. Stefanelli was asked how long Mr. Bush might have lived after he was shot. His death, the doctor said, would have been instantaneous.
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