Nov. 24, 2009
If it wasn't crystal clear already, with one of lawyer David Feliciant's last questions yesterday it was obvious how determined the Ontario government and the OPP are to play hardball to the bitter end with the Caledonia, Ont. couple who have dared to sue them.
Mr. Feliciant was cross-examining Dave Brown, who with his wife Dana Chatwell and their teenage son are suing for a total of $7-million, claiming they were abandoned by the state to the lawlessness which reigned when the former housing development called Douglas Creek Estates was seized and occupied by natives from the nearby Six Nations reserve.
"June 14, 2006," Mr. Feliciant said, reading from a police report. "Are you aware of an incident where Dana was intoxicated and drove the car into a ditch?"
"I wasn't there that night," Mr. Brown began.
"Where were you?" Mr. Feliciant asked.
"I don't remember," Mr. Brown said, then added, "She tried to keep it a secret from me, I believe. I forget how I found out." He paused, wrinkled his brow and asked, "Was she intoxicated?"
If it was hardly a glorious moment for the government, it was typical.
Worth remembering is that according to evidence already read into the record before Ontario Superior Court Justice Thomas Bielby, the government's own key police witnesses - from former OPP commissioner Gwen Boniface to the current OPP boss Julian Fantino to the senior officers in charge of the area at the time - acknowledge that the vast majority of the criminal conduct alleged in the lawsuit occurred and that the OPP did little to stop it.
Commissioners Boniface and Fantino, Superintendent John Cain and Inspector Brian Haggith all admitted to varying degrees in pretrial discovery that natives were routinely breaking the law, occasionally with shocking violence, and that the OPP wasn't enforcing it normally.
Indeed, in a wide-ranging series of incidents the police witnesses admitted had been carried out against the family, the OPP never made a single arrest.
That being so, it appears that what is left for the government is to attack the plaintiffs in the case.
Mr. Brown and his family live to this day cheek-by-jowl to the occupied land. Natives from the nearby Six Nations reserve seized it in February, 2006, repelled a lone OPP effort to return law-and-order two months later, and continue to this day to remain there, unmolested.
Mr. Feliciant yesterday tried to paint Mr. Brown, a 42-year-old former heavy equipment operator, as a greedy, racist drug addict who was quick to consult a lawyer about the lawsuit, tried to sue his former employer in small claims court, and even tried to extort money from the OPP for the videotapes his son shot on the day of the failed raid.
Mr. Feliciant's effort had mixed results, in that Mr. Brown readily admitted, as he always has, to using cocaine and stimulants, particularly during the so-called "barricade period" when natives made Mr. Brown and his family show native-issued "passports" even to get to their home, to consulting a lawyer, and to seeking money from the OPP - though he laughed out loud at Mr. Feliciant's suggestion he had demanded $15,000.
In general Mr. Brown, who kept his composure, answered these forays in a couple of ways.
Often, as might be expected of events that occurred almost four years ago, his memory was vague. Sometimes he alluded to the stress and fatigue of simply living in a war zone, never knowing when, or if, things would return to normal. And several times, he reminded Mr. Feliciant that, "I had no law, it was loud, I was scared. I don't think I was playing with a full deck."
Mr. Brown also seemed embarrassed about not only his drug use but also about his inability to cope with what was happening to him and his family.
He hid his cocaine use from his wife, he said, and when he finally told her, "She was scared for me. She was upset. She was mad. She was understanding - she knew I was failing fast," he said. "I just felt useless."
Ultimately, he said, he stopped cold turkey because "I realized it eventually would kill me."
Mr. Feliciant questioned him in detail about the night of May 8, 2006, which ended with Mr. Brown being held in a cell at the OPP detachment in nearby Cayuga, though he was released without charges the next morning.
He had attended a company outing to a Blue Jays game in Toronto, returned to be told at the native barricades that he had missed the native-imposed "curfew" and would not be allowed to go home.
He drove through the tape anyway, enraged, and was picked up by native security and returned to the OPP barricades.
Mr. Feliciant asked if he had made remarks that offended an employee who was married to a native. Mr. Brown said he didn't remember saying anything, but allowed that "Maybe something was said [about the occupation] and I retaliated." His work records show he was counselled about his deteriorating conduct and "racial slurs about natives."
He was always angry, he said, in those days. "I'm angry every time I drive to my house."
One of the last things Mr. Feliciant asked him about was a call he'd once made to the OPP about a sign. Mr. Brown remembered phoning to report that someone had driven into and knocked the sign into the ditch.
It was after the barricades came down in late May, and the roads were again open, Mr. Brown said - and clogged with cars whose drivers were "looky-looky" as they slowly drove by the now-notorious estate.
The OPP had put up the sign, asking motorists to stick to the posted limit of 80 kilometres an hour, presumably so natives wouldn't have to tolerate the cruel stares of the curious.
It is virtually the only instance of active law enforcement the trial has heard of so far.