By Mike Archer. Marijuana activist Tim Felger estimates the RCMP have spent upwards of $300,000 in getting a conviction against him for possession of marijuana.
Who knows what the Abbotsford Police Department and their SWAT team and lawyers cost us in order to have all charges against him thrown out in their futile battle with the political militant protester against the War on Drugs.
You’ve got to be kidding me … All that and you nailed him for possession!
Now that’s just plain stupid.
They don’t even arrest people for possession anymore. What the hell is wrong with the cops in Abbotsford and Mission.
If only they would invest that kind of time and money fighting crime.
You caught a marijuana activist with a joint and spent more than $300,000 of my money trying to punish him … What the hell is the matter with you?
Here’s Felger on his conviction:Drug squad officer arresting Tim Felger in front of his Da Kine storefront
“Five RCMP officers to testify; four sheriffs; two registrars; one Judge; two lawyers and [I] spent over 15 days of court time in order to get me convicted of possession.
“Then don’t forget to add the cost of the court house and the cost of incarceration.
“The stories put before the court that I was selling pot to teenagers w[ere] malicious and just untrue.
“What happened was it was actually entrapment by the RCMP.”
Felger says he intends to apply for a post verdict application for entrapment which could not be made until the RCMP, apparently eager for a conviction of some sort … any sort … against him, presented their evidence.
Based on the evidence the RCMP presented Felger expects to prove entrapment and have these charges thrown out like all the others.
If what Felger alleges is true we may have witnessed one of the most expensive, probably illegal, possibly immoral and certainly ridiculous cases of false arrest, entrapment and misuse of public or civic authority since the City of Abbotsford lied to its citizens about the need to spend $300,000,000 on a new water system they didn’t need.
The evidence which is now on record may help Felger win any case he brings for false arrest or harassment. It may also end up dragging some pretty high profile citizens of Abbotsford before a judge to explain their roles in what has happened to Felger.
This has been a colossal waste of public time and public money. Both the Mission RCMP and the Abbotsford Police Department have come out of this looking foolish and inept. If they were put up to it by civic authorities or business interests this may become an even bigger scandal than the Abbotsford Chicken Manure Homeless Incident
With every charge against Felger which gets thrown out of court it is beginning to appear as though someone took the law into their own hands and decided to harass Felger unmercifully.
Was the objective to ensure he got the message that his political views were not appreciated? Was the objective to have him move to different piece of private property?
If someone was trying to harass Felger, they certainly picked the wrong guy to harass.
Knowing his rights, and being made of sterner and stronger stuff than Abbotsford’s homeless, Felger resisted the fumbling attempts by the City of Abbotsford, its bylaw department and the APD to scare him or push him around.
If, as Felger maintains, they entrapped him, falsely arrested him, imprisoned him and destroyed his livelihood and his personal life, they should have to pay for their actions. Whatever role the City may have played in this sorry saga must, just like the Abbotsford Chicken Manure Homeless Incident, be brought out into the light of day and fully investigated.
Felger has managed to have every charge against him so far thrown out of court and, based on the evidence presented in court in New Westminster last Monday, will likely have this one thrown out as well if he can prove he was the victim of police entrapment.
Based on the shoddy police work and bad legal advice they appear to have been receiving, he may be right.
If only our police devoted as much time fighting crime as they seem to devote to chasing and harassing the homeless and fighting losing battles for politicians and self-interested community leaders who have their own agenda for our community, not all of which is very pretty or legal.
If Felger gets these charges thrown out too, the provincial government should be called in to perform a judicial inquiry into just how the Abbotsford Police Department and the Mission RCMP are run; who, if anyone, from the civilian community, pulls the strings at each organization and just how much local business people and politicians are allowed to dictate how the law is enforced in these two communities.
What appears to have happened in the Tim Felger case is an embarrassment to any country which considers itself modern, civilized or governed by the rule of law. Selective enforcement of the law, which appears to align perfectly with the business and political objectives of prominent individuals in the community, is a serious enough affront to the civil liberties we all assume we’ve got that nothing less than a full judicial inquiry will clear the air in both communities.
We are about to see just how much more of their friends’ and neighbours’ money our police, our local government and the provincial government are prepared to spend and just to what extent they are prepared to abuse their power harassing one man because they all agreed he was a pain in the ass.