Inquest and Control, Control, Control: One Man's Opinion

By Ben Meisner

                "The Coroners Service is a fact-finding, not a faultfinding agency that provides an independent service to the family, community, government agencies and other organizations. In the case of a death in custody under section 9 and 10 of the Coroners act, an  inquest must be held."   Those are the words you will find on the Coroner’s Service website.

If the Coroner’s inquest that took place in Houston last week is the Coroner’s and RCMP’s idea of a public inquiry so the public could be informed, we are in major trouble in this province.   The inquest  was to  examine the circumstances into the death of Ian Bush, who had been shot to death by a police officer in Houston in October of 2005.

The Lawyer representing the Coroner, Mitch Houg, came out after the hearing had been adjourned to thank the media, which included:  the three TV networks who were on hand (complete with satellite facilities) writers from the leading newspapers in BC, a reporter from Broadcast news, The Globe and Mail and several other news services , all on hand to report on the testimony and the events that took place. 

With the exception of Houg’s  polite thank you’s, the hearing could best be described as similar in every way to a trial in Khandahar. 

This inquest came complete with 4 people walking around the rented hall with guns strapped to their sides.  I am still at a loss as to why. 

The inquest was into the death of Ian Bush, nearly half of the people who were at the hall in the first day , were either police officers there to testify , or members of the family and other wittiness. About twenty per cent of the seats were occupied by Bush’s family and friends, and if  you factor in the media there weren’t many seats left for the general public.  

Now what in God’s name we would need four Sheriffs complete with their side arms , in many case arms folded , to watch over that crowd should leave you wondering why we are allowing  our system to degenerate?

These sheriffs moved around the hall in a fashion that can only be described as confrontational. Confrontation breeds confrontation. If the inquest wasn’t meant to be held in a controlled environment, it was. That control took the form of putting up a barricade so that Paul Koester, the RCMP officer who shot Bush, could come into the hall right from his vehicle without being near anyone. The sheriff’s service knew ,or should have known, that they had no right to set up a barricade on the sidewalk and the boulevard.  That is the property of the community of Houston. They did it anyway. 

As for Linda Bush, the mother of the dead man, was she given the same treatment?  Absolutely not.

If she wanted to enter the building, the barricade had come down, she was on her own.

It didn’t end there however.  In addition to the four gunmen, you were greeted by a man wearing an  I.D. tag the size of a billboard with some writing on it to, I suppose, signify who he was and to show his importance.

I at first referred to him as Mr. T, because he reminded me of that character in the way he moved about the hall ordering people around. I later learned he was Tom Collins, Senior Media facilitator of the Robson Square Provincial Court. So that I don’t forget, there, running around ordering the media around was (as I am told)  Terry Foster of the Coroner’s office, Oh and another one, a Rod Mackenzie, I was told he was very important, unfortunately I didn’t meet him, and I might add he wasn’t there after Thursday.  He and Terry Foster, no doubt had to get back to their office to clean up any unfinished work before Friday.

I enquired of Mr. T just how many people are here from the sheriffs office and coroners service?  With a bit of help we came up with 10.  He couldn’t say for sure, you see he was the media person for Court services, I would have to get the exact number from the Coroners office from Ms Foster, or I might want to ask Corporal Pierre Lamaitre of the "E" Division Headquarters of the RCMP in Vancouver, he could only speak of course for the RCMP, and I might add was. He was there at the very beginning of the Inquest, to say  they were about to release the tape with Constable Paul Koester on it, pleading for help. Now there were a few Radio Stations in the province running with it. They were under the impression it was taken while Ian Bush was "hitting on him".

Wrong,

In fact the pleas for help came after the shooting and why it made the list of the first items to be heard at the inquest behooves me.

Now you would think that with all of that firepower and brain power, we would have been treated to a pretty top notch set up.

Wrong again.

The sound system sounded like it had been commandeered from Betty’s Biker Bar in Spuzzum. It was bad enough that the following day, Coroner Shane DeMeyer, commented  , "I  can hear what’s happening today’. DeMeyer is the same Coroner who  presided over the inquest into the police shooting death of Kevin St. Arnaud.  That inquest ran like clock work, but then again, there weren’t  as many Sheriffs and P.R. people to gum up the works.

I’m sure with all of those heavy weights around DeMeyer was pretty low in the pecking order when it came to calling the shots around there.

Control , it was everywhere.

I made my way up to the front of the hall on the third day, after I had heard that Howard Rubin was there working for nothing. I thought regardless of how you felt, it would be a good gesture for one of us, ‘Northerners’ to ask him out for dinner on my dime. Well as it happened another reporter was making his way towards him and we were greeted by one of those armed guards, who said, "We are not allowing any media scrums here; if you want to talk to him get out of the building."  I did notice that no police officer was treated in the same manner when they decided to meet and greet.

Oh I may have forgotten those pesky Cell Phones.  I asked a junior reporter if he would mind taking a picture of Koester when he went into the building.     The moment he walked in the entrance way of the Houston Community Hall, he was ordered to vacate the building. Well that might be acceptable, but then were they taking away the rest of those cell phones that could take pictures I enquired?  So sorry folks , the light finally came on after I complained and that afternoon , they began to check the media. The media I say because I didn’t see the Police officers getting frisked, but then they are  peace officers.

Finally, when I asked could I see Constable Koester’s statement , the answer came , “No” well that was until I threatened to go seek an order to have a look at the exhibits which after all are public , given that the Supreme Court has said so , and I was told the Vancouver Sun were about to do the same . But it seemed that Mr. T knew better than the Court.  Finally, common sense must have prevailed and the following morning the media got to look at the statement and the pictures.

Thank God, Ian Mulgrew was there from the Vancouver Sun. He grabbed the whole statement off in shorthand after we were told you can look at it but you can’t have a copy. This was that "open; inform the public process"  in full swing.

During the inquest, Howard Rubin rose to ask if the Crown would pay for Dr. John Butt to attend the inquest. He is a leading authority in Pathology. As a matter of fact, he had taught in his class, Dr.  John Stefannelli,  the Pathologist who had conducted the autopsy on Bush. Stefannelli claimed the 3 by 6 - 8 inch bruise on Bush’s groin was the result of an ingrown hair. Butt ,after looking at the photograph, said he disagreed.

The Bush family doesn’t have the money to get Butt there, Rubin was working buckshee, you would think the Crown would be only too happy to have a witness of that stature come and give his opinion. Afterall, there was enough money  to have 10 people from the Coroners Service and the Sheriffs service who were collecting pay and expenses, there was an RCMP Corporal from Vancouver who was also doing both.

There were, in addition, three lawyers there; two were representing Koester in some form or another and another lawyer representing the province because  the Province is being sued.

I figured if you add all that up,  it was costing someone about upwards of ten grand a day .

The Coroners service is now deciding whether it should cover the cost of Butt to attend.

If the media and general citizens who were watching the proceedings last week came away with a feeling that if this is a public inquiry, it is sham, they did so with good reason.

I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s opinion.

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