His lawyer and a policing expert both said the case highlights problems with the type of no-knock raids where officers knock on someone’s door and confront them at gunpoint — including the key question of whether there is data to show that the tactic is effective. “It’s just a hoot,” said Chris Woof, a property manager and part-time hip-hop musician from east Ottawa. “They tore my house apart, literally, and left it in a huge mess… What’s to stop them from doing it again?” Two years ago, Ottawa’s police narcotics task force developed a new source, a person “familiar” with cocaine, crack and other drugs, according to complaints police filed in court. The whistleblower stood to be paid for sound advice they provided, even hearsay. Their first tip involved Woof, alleging simply that he sold “large amounts” of cocaine and crack.
“Weak” elements: lawyer
Based on that tip and subsequent surveillance of Woof, in which police never saw drugs but found it suspicious that two different men left his home hand in hand, police obtained a search warrant. A dozen officers in riot gear pounded on Woof’s door early on the morning of July 14, 2020. In a security video shown by CBC News, they can be seen deploying a stun grenade before entering, rifles drawn. Investigators seized 70 oxycodone pills, for which Woof had old prescriptions, a small amount of an “unknown white powder” that was later determined not to be a controlled substance, and tens of thousands of dollars in cash. said Woof CBC News last year the money was from his contracting business, where he often deals in cash. WATCHES | Christopher Woof discusses the impact the police raid had on him:
Ottawa police raided a home looking for drugs
Christopher Woof’s home security cameras capture police officers breaking into his home and he describes the impact on his life.
Police found no cocaine or crack.
“The evidence on which the warrant was based, I think, was weak,” 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 house.”
Woof’s home was raided largely based on information from a new paid informant, according to the police search-warrant application. A censored version of the document was released after the CBC filed a court application. (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 sentence of life in prison, and possession of proceeds of crime.
The case lasted in court for almost two years. Then, as the prosecution and defense argued with a judge whether the charges should be dismissed because of the delays, the Crown decided to drop the criminal charges.
Federal prosecutor Celine Harrington told CBC News in an email that the Crown’s own drug expert advised that he “could not support the view that the quantity of drugs seized was for the purposes of trafficking.”
Trauma and, sometimes, death
Woof’s case is one of several documented by CBC News from across the country in recent years where police forcefully raided someone’s home based on a tip that they would find illegal drugs or weapons, only to find nothing. Homeowners are left footing the bill for damages that can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, with their only recourse being to sue the police — an ordeal that can take years of costly litigation with no guarantee of success.
Even worse than property damage, door raids, which they happen almost every day in Canada, it can leave a trail of personal trauma and sometimes death.
“I haven’t slept properly since the day this happened,” Woof said of his experience. “Noises definitely wake me up. Every little thing wakes me up. I mean, it puts you off.”
At least six people, including a police officer, they are dead in no-hit raids in Canada over the past 15 years. At least three of them it was Black men, experts say — along with indigenous people — are disproportionately affected by violent police tactics.
The risks are so serious that some police forces have all but eliminated the type of no-knock raids, where officers break down a door and rush in, guns drawn. The Vancouver Police Department told CBC News it did nothing in 2019 or 2020, and the head of the RCMP’s tactical unit for BC’s Lower Mainland region said last year it could only recall one full “dynamic entry,” as they are called. as his team had been doing for the previous 12 months — and it wasn’t a drug search.
“It’s not unusual for the police to take the wrong house. It’s certainly not unusual for the police not to find what they’re looking for,” said Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, a University of Toronto sociology professor who studies policing, race and war on drugs.
“And sometimes, if the raids are not conducted properly, or if the warrant was not properly sought or obtained, even when there is evidence of criminality, that can be thrown out in court.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know if such a practice was effective?”
A major problem is that police agencies don’t track how often no-knock raids go off the rails for one or more of these reasons, said Owusu-Bempah and Giancaterino, the Ottawa defense lawyer. Interim Ottawa police chief Steve Bell told CBC News, “we just don’t have the system to do it 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-Ottawa chief temporarily banned most no-hit raids, with extenuating circumstances allowances, while the force carried out an audit. That moratorium is still in place, but a police spokesman said they could not immediately say how significantly it has reduced the number of no-knock raids officers do. University of Toronto sociologist Akwasi Owusu-Bempah says police are not held accountable when a raid fails to find evidence of crime. (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-knock raids they conduct, or how often those raids result in nothing, in charges laid or withdrawn, or in a decision that the police violated someone’s constitutional rights. “Wouldn’t you like to know if such a practice was effective?” Owusu-Bempah said. “We need to collect information on these cases so that we can not only have a measure of transparency in policing, but also accountability. “These are highly tactical teams with a lot of equipment. The officers involved receive a lot of training, so they are extremely expensive,” he said. “If the police are going to work to justify maintaining such tactics, they should at least demonstrate that there is not only a benefit to them, but that they are cost-effective.” Woof’s home security camera captured the police raid and 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 and foremost … I want the police to know that when they wrong me like this, then it will be public and they will be prosecuted.” “There’s nothing else I can do.” Send tips on this or any other story to [email protected] or call 416-205-7553
