Truth and fiction rife as Reodica inquest hits home-stretch

Truth and fiction rife as Reodica inquest hits home-stretch

By Marlene Mogado
(Courtesy of BALITA)

The long awaited appearance of the principal characters finally happened but when they took the witness chair there were times it was unclear what was court business and what was theatre, as truth and fiction interpolated fiercely on the 6th and 7th weeks at the Reodica inquest.

In this continuing witness account, I aim to give a balanced report and leave it to my readers to form their own opinions. But before going to the testimonies of the two police officers who are central to this drama we have first a feisty subcharacter named Richard to deal with.

Jeffrey’s Korean Canadian friend

Richard was next in a line up of witnesses that had featured so far a forensic pathologist, a Special Investigation Unit (SIU) lead investigator, seven youths and adults in the white group, six neighbors from around the site of the shooting, and nine from a group of mostly Filipino teens.

A Korean Canadian youth buddy of Jeffrey, Richard hung out with the “Asian Boys” in the area and was with the group that fateful day of May 21.

He was only 10 to 15 meters away from Jeffrey when the situation unfolded. He testified that when the man approached Jeffrey he heard his friend say “This guy is their dad.”

“Why did you shoot him?”

He related how the man pointed a gun while yelling to Jeffrey to “drop the rock” and “get on the floor”, how Jeffrey was pushed down on to his stomach, how the man got on top of him with both knees prompting Jeffrey to cry out “get off me”, how he struggled to get free by swinging his left arm and setting off to run when the man shot him three times in the back.

As Jeffrey fell, Richard’s reflex action was to confront the man with “Why did you shoot him?” The quick response was “Because he had a knife. Go sit down and be quite.”

Angered, he pressed, “Does that mean you have to shoot?” The man answered, “He stabbed me.” Richard: “Where did he stab you?” The man said “in the leg.” But to Richard “there was no mark, no blood” on both legs, and he “did not see a knife” anywhere.

Mistreated

Things did not get any better for Richard’s group from there on. Ten of them were rounded off, made to sit together on the curb and forbidden to talk to each other. Two Police Constables stood guard, with media people surrounding them with curious looks. The white group, on the other hand, was “sent away.”

It’s not fair “they got away” while the “Asian people” were searched and restricted, and “we weren’t even armed,” Richard said (from previous testimonies, it was revealed the white group were armed with hockey sticks stashed in the fences behind the school, and with bats carried in the van they were driving while no weapon of any kind was found on his group). 45 minutes later they were “herded” into a bus, seated separately, and under guard were taken to the police station.

The cold ill-treatment and isolation continued. In spite of the fact he was a minor, “My parents were not contacted,” testified Richard. All minors in his group, none of their parents were contacted. Some parents who feared the worse for their sons even went to the police station to file missing person reports but were not informed of the presence of some Asian kids there, he said. With nothing to drink or eat for up to about midnight, Richard was later told “if you have money you can get food.”

After his interview by the SIU and in conversation with the investigator on why Jeffrey was shot, Richard repeated to him that there was “no stabbing, no blood and no knife” but this investigator was not interested with the information. His tape recorder was turned off by then so it was not added to his interview report.

Call for Uniformed Officers

It was the undercover officers’ turn at the stand. Detective Constable Allen Love had been with the force for nine years but partnered with DC Dan Belanger only two years before. They had just started their shift at three p.m. and were on their way north on Kennedy off Lawrence to a late lunch when they got the call. Despite the fact it was a priority call that would normally go to uniformed officers they decided to respond to it.

They first caught up with the van with white occupants at the site. After identifying himself as a police officer and telling a youth to put back a bat he had grabbed from inside the van, Love then walked over towards a Filipino boy. He testified that he said to him “I am a Police Officer” but did not show a badge, adding it has become a habit to forget showing it when he makes arrests. He observed the boy drop a clump of dirt from his hands as he (Marc) said “You should see what they did to my cousin” to which he replied “Is he around? Call him here.”

“…He has a knife!”

From the car he heard his partner order Jeffrey to “drop the rock,” and saw him raise one hand as “in a motion to show his badge” but did not actually see the badge.

The next time he looked, Jeffrey was down on his stomach, with Belanger squatting on him attempting to handcuff his right hand behind his back. Love said that as he darted to help his partner Jeffrey managed to swing his left hand “in a roundhouse motion” with a knife that almost hit him in the face and neck. Backing away instinctively, he heard his partner yell “Knife, knife, he has a knife!” after which he heard 3 shots fired from his partner’s gun at Jeffrey.

“Are you ok?” Belanger immediately asked Love to which he replied “Yes. Are you ok?”

A well deserved rest?

On the car radio Love called for an ambulance and back up. Back with Jeffrey, Love said he turned him over, saw his hand “still holding the knife- gripping it,” removed the knife with 2 fingers and dropped it on the grass. He started CPR without protection, had to spit blood out, when Police Constable Hanna showed up with a CPR breathing mask. (Hanna had since quit the force and left the country.)
Paramedics arrived shortly to take over the CPR.

He joined his partner in the car, asked how he was and Belanger replied “Got me in the leg… don’t know if it’s cut.” Both were driven to the station. He spent some time at his “Boss’ office,” then taken to Centenary Hospital for the usual check up, confirmed he had no injuries, was prescribed sleeping pills and told to stay at home.

Love owns a similar knife

On cross examination Reodica lawyer Barry Swadron extracted from Love an admission that he kept a knife similar to the one found at the scene. It was “not police-issued, a personal flip knife, opened with centrifugal force, a restricted weapon under the Criminal Code, which he carried with him everyday to work as a uniformed officer, used for cutting wires, but left it at home that day.”

Love’s account of the struggle was more fiction than real, according to lawyer Kike Roach representing the community interest through the CASJ. She criticized it as “not plausible,” “not logical,” and “did not make sense.”

He admitted that he made his incident notes two days later at his lawyer’s office, missing to put down the times, contrary to the usual police practice to write them down accurately before their tour of duty ends. While the Asian kids had to be detained for over six hours for their testimonies, Love said “Kids don’t have the same stress level as I had,” the same reason he was “told to take time to relax.”

When his police training came into question he said he “froze up” and did not draw his gun despite his claim Jeffrey’s knife put his life in danger. Furthermore he was not adequately trained to handle sensitive situations.

He did not take any course on conflict resolution, de-escalation and diffusing a situation, or dealing with teens.

He saved my life

He agreed Jeffrey posed no threat to anyone, did not hear any profanities from him, nor did he see any weapon in his hands until the struggle, that he or his partner did not identify themselves as police officers to Jeffrey, nor did he hear anything said that Jeffrey was under arrest, and that he did not show his badge to Jeffrey either. But in the end after three days on the stand Love remarked dramatically that Belanger had “saved my life.”

Belanger- the Experienced Police

If experience maximizes professionalism, so should the conduct of police work. In the case of the central figure, Detective Constable Dan Belanger at 37, police work comes short, and so does his acting.
The 16-year police veteran was such a sensitive, almost timid, teary-eyed boy at the stand that his lawyer had to ask for a recess so he could regain his composure to continue.

His testimony concurs pretty much with that of his partner (both their SIU testimonies were taken at the office of the lawyer they shared at the beginning of the inquest) until the part where the struggle occurs. At over 275 lbs. squatting on both knees atop the 5’ 3” and about 160 lbs. frame of Jeffrey attempting to cuff his right hand, that the downed boy managed to open a knife and swing it with his left hand that rated a “shoot to kill” action from Belanger is the crux question.

Excessive force

It made “contact with his right inner thigh” and “threatened their lives” that prompted him to back up, draw his gun and shoot. Had the three shots not dropped Jeffrey he would have “shot more.” While he does not remember seeing the knife after, he recalls he saw the rock that lay beside the fallen boy.

He claimed at his cross examination he did not have his gun in his hands as he approached Jeffrey, as opposed to all previous witnesses who said otherwise.

He agreed he could have opted to use the usual fare for such situations- pepper spray and an extendo baton- which were available in their unmarked car.

Expectedly, lawyers for Jeffrey’s side branded parts of his testimony as fabrications, with Roach calling it “impossible,” while Reodica supporters cited them as “blatant distortions” and “lies.” Others, disgusted by the attempt to subvert justice, were even more turned off by the shooter’s “bad acting.”

The inquest continues but will have days off most of July and August. For further information please check online at www.balita.ca.

(With files from Lisa Morales) mmogado@yahoo.ca