Drug charges have been dropped against an Ottawa man whose home was raided by a rifle-wielding SWAT team, but he says he’s not satisfied there has been no accountability for a police operation that legal experts say which was based on flimsy evidence, and which he says has traumatized him.
His lawyer and a police expert said the case highlights problems with the type of no-call raids in which officers knock on someone’s door and confront them at gunpoint, including the basic question of if there is data to show that the tactic is effective.
“It’s just a mess of a case,” said Chris Woof, a property manager and part-time hip-hop musician from east Ottawa. “They literally trashed my house and left it in a giant mess… What’s stopping them from doing it again?”
Two years ago, the Ottawa police drug squad developed a new source, a person “familiar with” cocaine, crack and other drugs, according to allegations police filed in court. The confidential informant was paid for the correct tips they provided, even by hearsay.
His first tip was about Woof, alleging simply that he was selling “large quantities” of cocaine and crack.
‘Weak’ evidence: lawyer
Based on that tip and subsequent surveillance of Woof, in which police never saw any drugs but found it suspicious that two different men walked out of her home with their hands closed, police obtained a search warrant.
A dozen officers in commando gear pounded on Woof’s door in the early morning hours of July 14, 2020. In security video seen by CBC News, they are seen deploying a flashbang grenade before entering, rifles lying Investigators seized 70 oxycodone pills, for which Woof had old prescriptions, a small amount of “unknown white powder” that later tests showed was not a controlled substance, and tens of thousands of dollars in cash.
Woof said CBC News last year the money came from his recruitment business, where he often deals in cash.
LOOK | Christopher Woof talks about the impact the police raid had on him:
Ottawa police raid house looking for drugs
Christopher Woof’s home security cameras capture police raiding his home and he describes the impact on his life.
Police found no cocaine or crack.
“The evidence that the warrant was based on, I think, was flimsy,” said Woof’s lawyer, Paolo Giancaterino, who has worked on more than 75 cases in the Ottawa area involving drug search warrants.
“It seems like it’s pretty easy to get a search warrant these days and force your way into someone’s home.”
Woof’s home was raided largely based on information from a new paid informant, according to the police search warrant application. A redacted version of the document was made public after CBC requested it in court. (CBC)
Based on the oxycodone and cash, police charged Woof with possession of a controlled substance with intent to traffic, which in the case of opioids carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, and possession of the proceeds of crime.
The case dragged on in court for almost two years. Then, while the prosecution and defense argued before a judge whether the charges should be dropped because of the delays, the Crown decided to drop the criminal charges.
Federal prosecutor Céline Harrington told CBC News in an email that the Crown’s own drug expert advised she “could not support an opinion that the amount of drugs seized was for the purposes of trafficking.”
Trauma and sometimes death
Woof’s case is one of several documented by CBC News across the country in recent years in which police violently raided someone’s home based on a tip that they would find illegal drugs or weapons, only to not find anything Homeowners must pay damages that can amount to tens of thousands of dollars, with the only recourse being to sue the police, an ordeal that can lead to years of costly litigation with no guarantee of success.
Even worse than property damage, door slamming, that it happens almost daily in Canada, it can leave a trail of personal trauma and sometimes death.
LOOK | Rapper strikes back after no-hit raid:
An Ottawa man is demanding accountability for police who conducted a botched “no-touch” raid.
Police across Canada conduct hundreds of commando-style raids across Canada each year. But a CBC News investigation has revealed that some of these raids have been based on flimsy evidence. Now that charges have been dropped in another questionable case, an Ottawa rapper is trying to demand accountability.
“I haven’t slept well since the day this happened,” Woof said of his experience. “Noises sure wake me up. Every little thing wakes me up. I mean, it puts you on edge.”
At least six people, including a police officer, they have died in raids without a hit in Canada in the last 15 years. At least three of these were Black men, who experts say are, along with indigenous residents, disproportionately affected by violent police tactics.
The risks are so serious that some police forces have almost entirely done away with the kind of no-knock raids in which officers break down a door and walk in with guns drawn. The Vancouver Police Department told CBC News it did not conduct any in 2019 or 2020, and the head of the RCMP’s tactical unit for B.C.’s Lower Mainland region said last year that only he could recall a complete “dynamic entry”, as they are called, that his team had done in the previous 12 months, and it was not a drug search.
“It’s not unusual for the police to get the wrong house. It’s certainly not unusual for the police not to find what they’re looking for,” said Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto who studies. the police, race and the war on drugs.
“And sometimes, if the raids are not conducted properly or if the warrant was not properly requested or obtained, even when there is evidence of criminality, that can be rejected in the courts”.
“Wouldn’t you like to know if this practice was effective?”
A major problem is that law enforcement agencies don’t track how often their undetected raids go off the rails for one or more of these reasons, said both Owusu-Bempah and Giancaterino, the Ottawa defense lawyer .
Ottawa’s interim police chief, Steve Bell, told CBC News, “we don’t have the system in place to do that right now,” but said the force is deeply committed to improving its data collection and analysis.
Last year, following a CBC Fifth Estate investigation, then-Chair of Ottawa temporarily banned most no-hit raids, with bonuses in extenuating circumstances, while the force carried out a review. That moratorium is still in place, but a police spokesman said they could not immediately say to what extent the number of no-call raids officers are conducting has been reduced.
University of Toronto sociologist Akwasi Owusu-Bempah says police are not responsible when a raid turns up no evidence of criminality. (CBC)
The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, which oversees policing in the province, said in an email that police forces do not report the number of no-call raids they conduct, or how often those raids result in nothing found, in charges filed or withdrawn. , or in a judgment that the police violated someone’s rights.
“Wouldn’t you like to know if this practice was effective?” said Owusu-Bempah. “We have to keep collecting information about these cases so that we can not only have a measure of transparency in the police, but also accountability.
“They are very tactical teams with a lot of equipment. The officers involved get lots and lots of training, so they are extremely expensive,” he said. “If the police are going to work to justify maintaining these tactics, they should at least show that there is not only a benefit, but that they are cost-effective.”
Woof’s home security camera captured the police raid and his subsequent arrest. (Submitted by Chris Woof)
Woof, who said he had to spend thousands of dollars on a new front door and other repairs, vowed to sue over the botched raid on his home.
“I don’t even care about the money,” he said. “I want accountability first… I want the police to know that when they do me wrong like that, then it will be public and there will be a claim against them.”
“There’s nothing else I can do.”
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