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Angels | Terry Arnold | RCMP stings
Cops and angels?
Dueck threatens
citizen, judge throws case out, no consequences
injusticebusters allege StarPhoenix is covering up for
the Saskatoon Police Service who has erased Dueck's involvement
in this incident. We base our allegations on the following facts:
Betty Ann Adam's original report (reprinted below) clearly states
that Dueck was the cop who made
the threats. In the following weeks Chief Scott completely exonerated
Zoorkan for his role in the investigation. We relied on StarPhoenix
reports and carried them under the headline "Scott tells
Judge Laing to suck a rope". We thought there might be some
further reporting on what action might be taken against Dueck
for his prominent role in the threats against Cooper. So we waited.
And waited. In January, I called Betty Ann Adam to ask her what
had become of Dueck regarding this case. She told me that she
had heard nothing. I then asked her if, as a reporter she was
going to follow up this part of the story. She was fairly testy
with me and the conversation ended. We see Lori Coolican is now
covering the story.
This is not
the first time StarPhoenix has got testy with us. They
really dug in their heels in 1995 when they were tired of the
Foster Parent story. Reporters switched beats regularly. Les
Perreaux covered Richard Klassen's 1996 trial, where he was acquitted
of criminally libelling Dueck -- and wrote a story so confused
that it led many of the people of Harris to believe Klassen was
guilty of the original sex scandal charges. The family lived
in a virtual state of seige for two years and relocated to Manitoba.
During January, 2001, Perreaux apologized and did his best to
cover the attempts by Dueck's lawyers to drive Klassen out of
the lawsuit and discredit this website. Then Perreaux moved on
to a new job in Winnipeg.
StarPhoenix has lots to answer
for regarding the Saskatoon police. With the exception of an
occasional column from Randy Burton or Les MacPherson, it more or less accepts
the cops' press releases on face and doesn't bother to probe
further. What a shame that we have to rely on The Fifth Estate
for serious investigative journalism.
Do reporters
not find it odd that Dueck is the CID Superintendent, in charge of criminal
investigations? It appears that he is the third highest ranked
cop in the city, with only Chief Dave Scott and Deputy Chief
Dan Wiks above him. The Criminal Investigations Division is responsible
for most of the detective/ plainclothes officers within the Saskatoon
Police. Sections within this division include: Special Investigations,
Integrated Intelligence, Serious Crime, Major Crime, Polygraph,
Identification, Integrated Drug, Commercial Crime/Arson, Morality,
Vice, General Investigations/Stolen Auto, Break and Enter, SHOCAP
and Pawn Detail. Approximately 90 personnel work in this division.
The CID Superintendent is also in charge of the Center for Children's
Justice and Victim Services.
April, 2002: Zoorkan now heads
the Cold Squad, a prestigious position which lets him go on TV
and wear nice suits.
Man sues officer
over 'Rambo-type' tactics
By Lori Coolican of The StarPhoenix, May 28, 2001
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Quick Facts
- Postal worker Kim Allan Cooper
acuses officer Murray Zoorkan of malicious prosecution and abuse
of public office over a mail theft investigation.
- Charges against Cooper laid
in 1998 over the disappearance of $184,500 were stayed by Justice
Robert Laing in March, 2000.
- Laing said Zoorkan conducted
a "Rambo-type investigation" and was "a police
officer totally out of control. . . ."
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A Saskatoon postal worker who
endured what a Queen's Bench justice called a "highly Rambo-type
investigation" by city police in 1997 is suing the high-ranking
officer who tried to get him to confess to stealing nearly $200,000
from the mail.
The suit, filed earlier this
year by Kim Allan Cooper, 46, accuses Saskatoon police officer
Murray Zoorkan, then a sergeant, of malicious prosecution and
abuse of public office "by maliciously and/or knowingly
acting contrary to the law by initiating the proceedings against
the plaintiff without reasonable and probable cause." Zoorkan
was promoted to superintendent earlier this year.
Cooper was charged in December
1998 with theft over $5,000 and theft from the mail following
a two-year joint investigation into the disappearance of a money
packet containing $184,500. It had been mailed from Credit Union
Central in Regina to branches in and around Saskatoon.
The money never arrived. It
was scanned by a computer at the Regina post office, but vanished
after that. Cooper was a postal clerk who was sorting packages
at the Saskatoon post office the night the money went missing.
The charges against him were
stayed last March after Justice Robert Laing dismissed the only
evidence against him - a written statement Cooper gave to police
after a series of encounters with Zoorkan and other officers,
who were trying to get him to take a polygraph test.
In spring 1997, Cooper and
his family were openly followed by police, and Zoorkan threatened
the man and his wife, making references to their marriage and
saying he knew where their children went to school.
The officer threatened to arrest
Cooper in front of his children. He told him the Hells Angels
knew he had stolen a large sum of money and would be after him
and his family for it, court heard at Cooper's trial.
Cooper finally gave a written
statement to police explaining he had seen the money packet on
the night in question, and had left it locked in a cage on the
instructions of his supervisor. It was the only evidence police
ever obtained showing the money packet made it to Saskatoon.
In ruling the statement inadmissible,
Laing called Zoorkan "a police officer totally out of control
. . . operating without any sense of decency or conscience."
In the wake of Laing's comments,
senior police officials investigated Zoorkan's tactics and decided
no action would be taken against him.
Cooper was fired from the post
office the day after he was charged. He has been reinstated,
but now works as a mail carrier rather than in the warehouse,
defence lawyer Darren Hagen said Friday.
Cooper hasn't specified how
much money in damages he is seeking. Speaking on his client's
behalf, Hagen said "he doesn't feel he or his family were
treated very fairly at all by the tactics used by the Saskatoon
city police.
"One judge has already
agreed with that and thought it was totally inappropriate, the
conduct of Sgt. Zoorkan."
He said Cooper is looking forward
to having the matter resolved in the courts.
Judge slams 'Rambo' investigation:
Postal worker's name cleared after mail theft charges dropped
By Betty Ann Adam, StarPhoenix,
March 21, 2000
Charges against Kim Allan Cooper,
a Saskatoon postal worker accused of stealing $184,500 from the
mail, have been dropped after a judge threw out the only evidence
against him, declaring that it was obtained by a police officer
"operating without any sense of decency or conscience."
In his March 8 decision, Queen's
Bench Justice Robert Laing said Sgt. Murray Zoorkan, a 27-year
veteran of the Saskatoon Police Service, staged a "highly
Rambo-type investigation" that included intimidating comments
about Cooper's wife and children and a threat that the Hells
Angels biker gang would come after them.
For more than seven weeks,
Zoorkan pressed Cooper to take a polygraph test, something Cooper
had the right to refuse. Nor was Cooper advised of his right
to a lawyer.
Cooper eventually gave Zoorkan
a short handwritten statement. In it, he said he recalled handling
a money packet the night in question. He said the supervisor
told him to leave it on the table, that he left it there and
locked the room before going home.
That statement formed the basis
of the Crown's case against Cooper. It was the evidence Laing
threw out two weeks ago.
Cooper, 45, was charged in
December 1998 with theft over $5,000 and theft from the mail.
The charges followed a two-year joint investigation by Canada
Post and city police in Regina and Saskatoon. Cooper was fired
the next day, on Dec. 22, 1998.
The theft involved the corporation's
now-defunct "money packet system," which allowed customers,
such as banks, to send cash by registered mail. The money was
never recovered.
"It disappeared without
a trace," said prosecutor Terry Hinz.
On Oct. 6, 1996, a package
containing $184,500 in cash was mailed from Credit Union Central
in Regina, destined for Saskatoon and branch offices in the area.
The registered packet was scanned by a computer in the Regina
post office. Nobody knows what happened to it after that.
The normal procedure would
have been for the package to be placed in a "monotainer,"
a large open box, that would have been carried by forklift to
the loading dock, then placed in a semi-trailer. In Saskatoon
the monotainer would have been carried in, dumped on a table
and the bags and boxes sorted. A registered money packet should
have been scanned and locked in a safe awaiting delivery to the
local address.
When the package didn't arrive,
the credit union contacted Canada Post. Postal investigators
tried to find out what happened to it, but came up with nothing.
The matter was reported to police and officers in both Regina
and Saskatoon investigated.
After months of tracing the
route the package should have taken, they came up empty-handed.
They had no evidence to show the package ever left the Regina
post office and no way to link any individual to it.
By Feb. 12, 1997, Zoorkan's
main suspect was Kim Cooper, the postal clerk who sorted packages
in Saskatoon the night the money disappeared.
Cooper had worked at the post
office for 12 years. His wife Marilyn is the nurse in charge
at Luther Senior Centre. The couple have four sons, who were
13, 11, seven and four years old at the time.
Cooper enjoyed coaching his
sons in soccer, taking them to judo lessons and puttering around
the garden.
Cooper and his wife spoke Saturday
about the nightmare they endured during the investigation and
how it has changed their lives.
Meeting with a reporter and
their lawyer, Darren Hagen, the couple were tense and nervous.
Some recollections brought them to tears.
On March 14, 1997, Zoorkan
and another officer interviewed Cooper at the police station,
during which Cooper refused to take the lie detector test. When
Cooper stood up to leave, Zoorkan told him to sit down, that
he wasn't finished with him yet. At the end of the interview
Zoorkan told Cooper they would be in touch.
Although Cooper had asked that
the interview be taped, it was not. Cooper said that on more
than one occasion, Zoorkan discouraged him from consulting a
lawyer, saying that Cooper didn't need one if he was innocent
and that a lawyer would just slow down the process.
Soon after the first interview,
Cooper phoned a lawyer whose name he got from the yellow pages.
The lawyer told him polygraphs are inconclusive and are not accepted
as evidence in court.
Near the end of March, police
in a cruiser followed Cooper and his wife as they prepared for
an Easter vacation with Kim's relatives in Calgary. The couple
felt they had no choice but to go to the police station to see
Zoorkan.
At the station, Zoorkan told
Cooper he was a suspect in the theft. He asked Cooper how his
marriage was. When Cooper replied that it was like any marriage,
Zoorkan said, "We'll see about that."
Zoorkan told the couple he
intended to talk to all their neighbours, their minister, their
children's friends' parents.
He also told the couple he
knew what school their children went to. "He was going to
try and destroy our family. I felt like he was trying to break
us," Marilyn recalls.
"I couldn't believe the
incident was happening. Why would you involve our children?,"
she said. "I was afraid. We were doing what we thought was
right by co-operating and it was a threat."
On Saturday, April 24, Cooper
and his family returned from buying groceries to find Zoorkan
waiting in a police car parked in front of their house. When
the family got out of their van, Zoorkan approached Cooper and
said he wanted to talk to him.
When Cooper refused, Zoorkan
told him to get in the police car or he would arrest him immediately
in front of his family.
In the police car, Zoorkan
angrily swore at Cooper. He told Cooper another officer had some
information Cooper would be interested in.
Sgt. Brian
Dueck arrived and got in the car with them. He said word on the
street was that the Hells Angels knew he had $184,000 in cash
and that they intended to come after his wife while he was at
work.
After 70 minutes of sitting
in the police car on the street in front of the neighbours, Zoorkan
let Cooper get out of the car.
He walked past his family,
who had stayed in the front yard throwing a ball the entire time,
and went into the house. He went into his bedroom and cried.
"I lived in fear. I had to go to work with this threat.
It was a death threat. I was taking different ways to work,"
he said.
Cooper still refused to do
the polygraph.
On April 29, Zoorkan told them
to come to the police station again. This time another officer
was in the interview room with Zoorkan and the Coopers. The other
officer took a less aggressive approach in trying to get Cooper
to do the polygraph, while Zoorkan sat against the wall.
When the Coopers said they
had to leave to take one of the boys to a dental appointment,
Zoorkan stood up and kicked a chair, startling the couple. On
May 6, Cooper sat down at his kitchen table and wrote the details
he remembered from Oct. 6, 1997.
Cooper's statement was the
first evidence police had to show the money arrived in Saskatoon.
It did not contain an admission. Rather, Cooper wrote that he
had notified his supervisor that a money packet had arrived,
that the supervisor couldn't get the safe open and told him to
leave the money on the table for the day staff to put in the
safe.
Cooper told the supervisor
he was uncomfortable doing that, but the supervisor overruled
him.
"I left the pouch on the
table, locked the cage and gave the key to (the supervisor.)"
Cooper wrote.
On May 17, Zoorkan phoned Cooper
and called him a liar.
The couple waited to see what
would happen next. For a year and a half, nothing did.
On Saturday, Dec. 18, 1998,
Cooper was driving his son and his son's friend to judo when
three unmarked police cars surrounded him. Zoorkan came to the
car and told him to get out. He told Cooper he was under arrest
for mail theft.
Cooper was held in custody
for 12 hours before being released. On Monday, Dec. 21 he was
formally charged. He was fired the next day.
For the next five months, Cooper
stayed in the house almost constantly. Cooper took a job as a
truck driver and now works away from home five days a week.
The first part of the trial
was to determine which evidence would be admitted. After a voir
dire, Justice Laing ruled that Cooper's handwritten statement
was not admissible and the Crown stayed the charges.
"The case is toast,"
Crown prosecutor Terry Hinz said last week. "Once Judge
Laing ruled that statement was inadmissible we're back in the
situation where we can't even prove the money left Regina. Without
that statement we had no alternative but to shut the case down.
In his ruling, Laing severely
criticized the investigative tactics employed by Zoorkan: "He
decided he would operate not according to the law - which I am
sure he was well acquainted with - but according to his own rules,
which, in a nutshell, was intimidation to force Mr. Cooper into
doing something that law said he had a perfect right not to do,"
Laing stated.
"I will go so far as to
say that Sgt. Zoorkan's conduct, in my opinion, was offensive
to the rule of law.
"In the view of this police
officer, the end justified the means. The courts have never tolerated
this approach by police officers, nor do I."
Laing characterized Zoorkan's
actions the day he threatened Cooper with the biker gang and
threatened to arrest him when he had no grounds to do so, as
those of "a police officer totally out of control."
"There was never any right
to counsel or any warning given to Mr. Cooper at any stage along
this highly Rambo-type investigation," Laing stated.
Laing also stated that Zoorkan
lied when he claimed that he accidentally left the microphone
turned off during the first interview. Laing also noted that
Zoorkan did not warn Cooper that he was the main suspect and
did not tell him of his right to have a lawyer present.
"These were two experienced
police officers. . . . I am not able to suggest or overlook that
they did not know what the proper procedure was," Laing
wrote. Laing was amazed by Zoorkan's intimidation of Cooper.
"The evidence indicates,
in my mind, a police officer operating without any sense of decency
or conscience," Laing stated.
"It would not hurt my
feelings if the remarks were made available to the police chief,"
Laing stated.
Dale Meier, president of Local
824 of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, said he expects
Cooper to get his job back.
"In cases like this, I've
never seen anything less," Meier said.
The union automatically filed
a grievance with the corporation when Cooper was fired, saying
that he was unjustly released. Now the union will wait for confirmation
from the courts that the charges have been dismissed before proceeding
to arbitration with the employer, Meier said.
Canada Post spokesperson Brian
Garagan said the corporation's legal staff will review the matter
after all the legal procedures are complete.
Judge's denunciation of cop to be reviewed
By Betty Ann Adam, SP May
22, 2000
Police Chief Dave Scott has
instructed senior police officials to review the statement of
a Queen's Bench justice who denounced the investigative techniques
of a Saskatoon police sergeant as those of "an officer totally
out of control."
Justice Robert Laing made the
comments about Sgt. Murray Zoorkan in his March 8 decision to
dismiss the only evidence against a Saskatoon postal worker who
was charged with stealing $184,500 from the mail.
Without the statement from
the postal worker, Kim Allan Cooper, as evidence in the case,
Crown prosecutor Terry Hinz had no choice but to stay the charges
against Cooper.
The missing money was mailed
from Credit Union Central in Regina in October 1996. It was scanned
by computer at the post office there, then disappeared without
a trace.
For more than seven weeks in
the spring of 1997, Zoorkan tried to get Cooper, who sorted packages
in Saskatoon, to give a polygraph test, something Cooper had
the right to refuse.
Laing said Zoorkan intimidated
Cooper with comments about his marriage and by saying he knew
where Cooper's children went to school. As well, Cooper was threatened
that the Hells Angels biker gang would come after him or his
wife. Cooper eventually gave police a short statement saying
he had handled a money packet the night the cash disappeared.
He said he left it locked in a cage, at the direction of his
supervisor.
Laing said the statement was
given involuntarily by (sic) an officer "operating without
any sense of decency or conscience," who staged a "highly
Rambo-type investigation," that was "offensive to the
rule of law."
Scott said Dan Wiks, deputy
chief in charge of operations, and Don MacEwan, superintendent
in charge of criminal investigations, will consult with Hinz
in reviewing Laing's statements, "to see if there are any
issues that we as a police service should be concerned about
with regards to the investigation. "If there is I will address
them."
Scott said he has no idea what
the possible outcomes might be.
The review will probably take
a couple of weeks, Scott said. He leaves for a holiday April
11 and won't be back until the end of the month.
"It would be around the
first of May, I would imagine, before I could get a clear understanding
of what the issues are and what we should do," he said.
- Police officer off the
hook for 'Rambo-type' inquiry
- Chief rules no discipline needed, despite
judge's comment
By Betty Ann Adam, May 10,
2000
Police Chief Dave Scott will
not discipline a Saskatoon officer who was chastised by a judge
for staging a "highly Rambo-type investigation" and
"operating without any sense of decency or conscience."
Scott directed an interview
request Tuesday to Staff Sgt. Glenn Thomson, who said an internal
investigation into the behaviour of Sgt. Murray Zoorkan during
a mail theft investigation three years ago did not uncover any
illegal activity. No action will be taken, Thomson said.
"We have interviewed the
prosecutor and defence counsels, the judge declined an interview.
As a result of that we found no misdoings under the Criminal
Code or the provincial Police Act," Thomson said.
"The superintendent of
criminal investigations, the member and the prosecutor sat down
and discussed the situation and the techniques and we're satisfied
that the situation has been dealt with. "It's all over and
done with."
In March, Scott directed senior
police officials to look into Zoorkan's behaviour following a
scathing rebuke by Queen's Bench Justice Robert Laing about Zoorkan's
methods in obtaining a statement from a suspect in the mail theft
case.
In the judgment, Laing declared
inadmissible a statement by postal worker Kimberly Allen Cooper
regarding a missing mail packet that contained $184,500. Without
Cooper's statement as evidence in the case, Crown prosecutor
Terry Hinz stayed the charges against Cooper.
The missing money was mailed
from Credit Union Central in Regina in October 1996.
It was scanned by computer
at the post office there, then disappeared without a trace.
For more than seven weeks in
spring 1997, Zoorkan tried to get Cooper, who sorted packages
in Saskatoon, to take a polygraph test, something Cooper had
the right to refuse.
Laing said Zoorkan intimidated
Cooper with comments about his marriage and by saying he knew
where Cooper's children went to school. As well, Cooper was threatened
that the Hells Angels biker gang would come after him or his
wife.
Cooper gave police a short
statement saying he had handled a money packet the night the
cash disappeared. He said he left it locked in a cage, at the
direction of his supervisor.
Laing said the statement was
given involuntarily to an officer "operating without any
sense of decency or conscience," who staged a "highly
Rambo-type investigation" that was "offensive to the
rule of law."
In his ruling, Laing criticized
the investigative tactics employed by Zoorkan: "He decided
he would operate not according to the law - which I am sure he
was well acquainted with - but according to his own rules, which,
in a nutshell, was intimidation to force Mr. Cooper into doing
something that law said he had a perfect right not to do,"
Laing stated.
Scott asked Dan Wiks, deputy
chief in charge of operations, and Don MacEwan, superintendent
in charge of criminal investigations, to consult with Hinz in
reviewing Laing's statements, "to see if there are any issues
that we as a police service should be concerned about with regards
to the investigation." Thomson said the matter was completed
in the last few days.
Darren Hagen, Cooper's lawyer,
said Cooper has directed him to look into his legal options and
whether lawsuits against police in similar cases have been successful.
Cooper has not decided whether
he will file a formal complaint with the police department about
Zoorkan's actions, Hagen said.
City police
owe explanations for recent 'policies',
Les MacPherson, StarPhoenix,
May 11, 2000
Saskatoon city police have
a new word for lying under oath, for threatening a man's wife
and children, for behaving without conscience or decency. The
word is "policy."
This would explain how a senior
officer can get away with all of the above without being disciplined
in any way. It's standard operating procedure.
The officer would be Sgt. Murray
Zoorkan, who earlier this spring was denounced in open court
by the presiding Queen's Bench judge. This happened during a
case involving a postal worker acquitted of theft, when Justice
Robert Laing rejected Zoorkan's evidence. The case revolved around
an ambiguous statement extracted from the accused by means of
police intimidation, including systematic harassment and, most
despicably, threats of violence against his family.
I know where your children
go to school, Zoorkan told the accused.
"Totally out of control,"
was Laing's characterization of the veteran officer. Zoorkan's
methods were not only unconscionable and indecent, said the judge,
but "offensive to the rule of law."
It was an invitation to justice
authorities to charge Zoorkan with criminal intimidation and-or
perjury.
That was back in March. This
week, more than two months later, police finally announce Zoorkan
will not be charged with criminal intimidation. Neither will
he be subjected to any internal discipline. Not so much as a
reprimand.
It figures that police aren't
saying why Zoorkan, a senior, veteran officer from whom others
will take their lead, is allowed to get away with the kind of
conduct you'd expect of a gangster. Police Chief Dave Scott,
who is responsible for internal discipline, won't even deign
to publicly discuss the little matter of a rogue cop.
He left the talking to Staff
Sgt. Glenn Thomson, who would only say that there was no crime,
no violation of the Police Act and no reason to discipline Zoorkan.
How this could be when sworn
testimony led a respected trial judge to declare otherwise, neither
Thomson nor anyone else in authority will say.
"It's over and done with,"
Thomson insisted.
As usual, the city's police
commission has kept a low profile. So low as to be invisible.
If we still have a police commission, that is.
We're supposed to. It's important.
Without the leadership and civilian oversight of an effective
police commission, police could do whatever they wanted.
They would be out of control.
Exactly as they appear to be.
Surprise.
The police commission we're
supposed to have is supposed to be chaired by Mayor Henry Dayday.
Someone should mention this to him, if it isn't already too late.
Under the dubious leadership
of Dayday and Scott, the Saskatoon police service is squandering
its most important resource, namely the public trust.
Police are already suspected
of dumping helpless drunks at the edge of town, at night, in
winter. Police files that might have implicated particular officers
in a case where a man froze to death have conveniently gone missing.
This is not the first time
something like this has happened.
Records that might have exposed
a police cover-up of David Milgaard's wrongful conviction conveniently
went missing, too.
When Zoorkan was reprimanded
by the judge, Scott responded by going on holidays. This even
as an RCMP task force investigated other allegations of police
misconduct.
It's not as if there's a lot
of brilliant investigative work in between scandals. Police appear
to have no clue in three unsolved home-invasion murders and as
many brutal assaults.
And now we learn that police
policy apparently includes threatening children to force a confession
from their father, who, from all indications, is innocent.
" . . . In the view of
this police officer," said the judge, "the end justified
the means. The courts have never tolerated this approach by police
officers and neither do I."
What's alarming is that the
same cannot be said of our mayor and police chief. They're leaving
an out-of-control officer on the street with a badge and gun.
They can't even police their own department.
Dueck was the lead investigator,
indeed, the manufacturer of the Foster Parent scandal. Even though
the corrupt methods for obtaining convictions on Satanic cult
cases had been thoroughly exposed by 1989 through the overturning
of several U.S. convictions, he and free-lance therapist Carol
Bunko-Ruys whipped whipped up a Satanic frenzy in Saskatchewan,
aided by university chaplain Colin
Clay. Social Services worker Liz Newton provided the link
to the money which financed the Thompson facility where the three
troubled Ross children were allowed to carry on activities which
were destructive to themselves and each other.
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Dueck
