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Raid rattles family
By Hempology | September 24, 2002
Police “apologize” for invading their home during east-end drug search
From the Province, September 20, 2002
By Salim Jiwa
Rowena Liu says she was scared to death when a small army of police officers put a gun to her head and
handcuffed her in a botched marijuana raid on her 86-year-old father’s east-end home.
The police left an hour later after searching every room in the house – and then told the 43-year-old Vancouver
woman that someone had apparently supplied the wrong information.
Her elderly dad was so shaken he has barely eaten in more then 24 hours since the raid, Liu said yesterday
as she took a reporter around the neatly kept home.
“Does it look to you like marijuana was being grown here?” she asked.
Vancouver Police Const. Sarah Bloor has acknowledged that officers were acting on information and obtained a
warrant to search the home and had made a mistake.
She also confirmed they entered the home with guns drawn.
“We apologize to the occupants,” she said, adding that the police will formally apologize to the family.
Bloor said officers had “resonable and probably grounds” to believe the information was accurate and obtained
a court warrant on that basis.
Liu’s question? “How come they don’t obtain enough information before they come bursting into people’s homes?
Why pick on us if you don’t have the right information? Can they search just because someone reports something?”
The family plans to complain to the police.
Liu said she was sitting in the downstairs living room of the home with her dad after returning from lunch
with him when she saw squad cars piling up outside the home, which is owned by Liu and her brother.
A nieve who is an acupuncture student looks after the elderly man. Liu said she visits daily to make sure her
dad is OK.
“I don’t live here. I had come to take dad for lunch and we were sitting here when I saw all these police cars
outside,” said the mother of two, who works as a housekeeper. “So I parted the drapes and I looked out and said
to my dad, ‘How come there are so may police cars outside.’”
Liu said the officers were arriving with their hands on their huns and one put his gun against the window
where she was looking outside.
“They were banging on the door and I went and opened it,” she said. “They put a gun to my head and handcuffed
my hands behind my back and ordered me to sit down. They were very rough and they ordered my dad to sit down too.”
Liu sat handcuffed for more than an hour downstairs while officers rifled through their possessions.
“Then they came downstairs and one policeman said someone reported there was marijuana growing here,” she said.
“He said we are sorry, we did not find any marijuana but someone reported that two days ago.”
They handed her a copy of the court-ordered search warrant and a calling card and left.
“My dad… has not eaten much since this happened, Liu said. “I did not sleep at all last night.”
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