Vancouver Police caught lying at murder trial

False testimony was provided by a Vancouver Police officer Wednesday at the murder trial of Dennis Knibbs in B.C. Supreme Court. We know it was provided by either Constable Mark Naufeld or Constable Eileen Volpatti? Which one was it?

When Constable Naufeld and Constable Volpatti separately testified today about the handling of evidence – a black athletic bag with DUNLOP written on the side containing a shot gun -- which was discovered outside the New Wings Hotel just after two people had been shot in a room upstairs.

Constable Naufeld testifies

When Constable Naufeld, in his 20’s, Caucasian with short, black, wavy hair, arrived at the scene, he saw several VPD officers dealing with “various women” who were exiting the New Wings through the front door. He stopped one of the women. He had observed her carrying a black athletic bag but that was not the reason he stopped her; police were stopping everyone coming out of the hotel. “She was carrying [the bag] by the straps as she exited the hotel.”

Naufeld told her to put the bag down and stand near a wall. She “put the bag at her feet”, he said. “She moved at least 10-15 feet from where she had placed it.”

He later confirmed that she was Lauren Lee Wayne, a native woman in her early twenties, with a “13” tattooed on her stomach. “Did she remain standing at the wall?”, prosecutor Alisha Adams asked. She did, Naufeld said.

“Constable Volpatti then arrived to assist you,” Adams said. “Constable Volpatti showed me what was in the bag”, Naufeld said. He saw “what appeared to be a sawed off shotgun” inside the bag.

Then Naufeld said, “I returned to stand with Ms. Wayne.”

Constable Naufeld contradicts himself

When cross-examined by defense lawyer, Glen Orris, Naufeld started out with basically the same version of events that he had given the prosecutor. When he arrived at the New Wings after the shooting, he had seen Ms. Wayne exiting the front door with “four or five” other women. He told her “to put whatever’s in her hands on the ground”, and she complied. “Then you asked her to move away from the entrance area”, Orris said. Naufeld added that he had “walked her 10-15 feet away from the bag.”

Then what did you do? “I stayed with her”, Naufeld responded. Naufeld asked her to identify herself and then “verified it on the police computer system” in a police car. It was beginning to sound as though he had left the witness unattended at the wall. But he corrected that impression by stating that other police units had begun to arrive so he had asked another officer to check “your witness and mine.” Wayne’s name was punched into the computer and the “The description and photo matched,” Naufeld said. “Then I went back to stand with Ms. Wayne,” he said.

Then Constable Volpatti got your attention, Orris said. “Are you still by Ms.Wayne?,” Orris asks. Naufeld confirmed that he was.

At this point, Naufeld claimed, Constable Volpatti “asked me to look at the evidence.” She “asked me to take a look inside the bag.” He then added, smiling slightly, “I had a peek into the bag” and saw a “sawed off shot gun.” Orris suggested that Naufeld must have separated from his witness to walk 10-15 feet over to the bag to which Volpatti had drawn his attention. “She had the bag in her hand,” Naufeld quickly added. I’m confused, said Orris, seemingly playing dumb. “Constable Volpatti comes over to you and says, ‘Look in the bag’.” Then Orris reminded Naufeld that he had just testified, minutes earlier when questioned by the Crown prosecutor, that he had looked into the bag containing the shot gun “and then went back towards Ms. Wayne.” Naufeld is then nailed down on a claim that Orris no doubt anticipated Constable Volpatti would contradict: “At all times, you where standing within a few feet of Ms. Wayne.” Constable Naufeld responded, “Correct”.

Constable Volpatti contradicts Constable Naufeld

Constable Volpatti, 30ish, white, tall, thin, came to court wearing a black leather sports jacket -- unlike Naufeld who wore his uniform -- with her wavy brown hair in a pony tail. She testified that when she arrived at the New Wings the night of the shootings, she saw five women standing in front of the hotel with police. She began a “safety pat down searches” of these women to make sure they had no weapons.

Behind two females, she spotted the black duffle bag on the sidewalk. She “pulled it to the side of the sidewalk” and unzipped it. She saw a 15 inch “sawed off shot gun” in the bag. Volpatti confirmed that she “looked in it while it was on the ground.”

Defence lawyer Orris: Did you pick it up at any point?
Volpatti: No, I did not.

Volpatti then confirmed that she had asked the women on the sidewalk who the bag belonged to – although she claimed, “I don’t recall raising my voice”, as had been suggested by Orris. She confirmed that the bag was in the “middle of the sidewalk” at this time.

Orris reviewed Volpatti’s testimony one more time: “You see the bag on the ground…pulled it away a couple of feet.” “Two or three feet,” Volpatti interjected. When Orris asked her if she had ever picked up the bag, she responded, “No”. Then he nailed this point down a second time:

Orris: So you never picked up the bag, never touched it again?
Volpatti: No.

So Volpatti didn’t move key evidence, the bag with the shot gun, ten to fifteen feet away for ‘Show & Tell’ with Naufeld, as he had testified. Or did she? Which one of these officers is lying?

This lie is not a casual one. Both Naufeld and Volpatti were thoroughly questioned by Mr. Orris on the movement of the bag containing the shot gun. If either officer couldn’t remember something, they had ample opportunity to admit that – but one of them seems to have chosen instead to give false testimony under oath.

Orris is transparent about his strategy. He explained it in front of the jury on Monday: If he can show that a witness is lying about little things, it can be assumed that they could be lying about bigger things.

Gun? What gun?

Dennis Knibbs was “King of the New Wings”. He “ran” the New Wings Hotel, according to testimony heard Monday at Knibbs’ murder trial. He was a drug trafficker, one who extended credit. On the night the prosecution alleges Knibbs’ shot the man who had just shot his cousin at the New Wings Hotel, he wore black jeans, a black t-shirt, and a black hat, “a railway style hat, a Jamaican-style hat”. And he wore a pouch, “like a Gucci bag”, on his chest in which he kept his dope, his money, a police-style baton, and his 38 caliber handgun. And he drove a BMW 325.

Or did he?

Testimony by witness, Michael Vandenaneele, that Knibbs drove “a BMW; I think it was a 325”, was challenged by defense lawyer, Horace.

Horace drew Vandenaneele’s attention to the statement he had made to police in April 2005. The police had asked him if Knibbs had “a set of wheels.” Vandenaneele replied, “A Honda. I don’t know what kind of Honda. It’s a teal coloured car.”

Horace was bent on making Vandenaneele, a short man in his late thirties, balding with neck length red hair, wearing a medium blue shirt and dark diagonally striped tie -- look like a liar. Horace reminded Vandenaneele of the answer he had given in his police interview in 2005 when asked what Knibbs had been wearing on the night of the murder: “a black shirt, black pants, and a black hat; it was a railway style hat, a Jamaican style hat…it was a funny hat.”

“So it wasn’t a t-shirt and blue jeans?”, Horace said, implying that that was the answer Vandenaneele had given in trial testimony. “Black jeans”, Vandenaneele insisted. Horace backed off.

As for the pouch on Knibbs’ chest in which, Vandenaneele testified, he had seen him carry his dope, his money, and his 38 caliber handgun, defence lawyer Horace accused Vandenaneele of having made no mention of this pouch in his police statement. Vandenaneele retorted, “I mentioned he carried a pouch.” Horace let it go.

Then Horace didn’t venture far from the pouch. He turned to Vandenaneele’s claim that he had seen Knibbs whip a police-style baton out of his pouch immediately after seeing his cousin, Ian Liscombe, shot. Horace accused Vandenaneele of having made “no mention of a baton being in a pouch to police or at the preliminary inquiry.” Horace knew better: Vandenaneele had been clear in his trial testimony last Thursday that the night of the shooting was the only time he had seen Knibbs with a baton in his pouch; it was “the first time I seen it in the pouch”.

On the topic of the baton, Horace challenged Vandenaneele’s trial testimony that Knibbs had hit somebody in room 15 “on the head” with his baton. “You couldn’t possibly have seen that”, he told Vandenaneele who had claimed to have been headed down the hall towards Room 11 at this time. Horace also challenged Vandenaneele’s testimony that when the baton struck, “Then somebody screamed.” Horace read the transcript from the preliminary inquiry in which Vandenaneele had made no reference to any screams, testifying only that he had heard a table smashing, glass smashing, “bang, bang, bang, and then it was silent.” Vandenaneele, he pointed, had been specifically asked if he had heard any human sounds at this point. “No”, had been his response. And it would continue to be his response, according to the transcript of the preliminary inquiry:

Vandenaneele: “No it was just a big crack, that’s all I heard.”
Question: No other sounds after that?
Vandenaneele: No, no.

Horace knocked out Vandenaneele on the issue of the 38 hand gun. He reminded Vandenaneele that in his trial testimony last week, he had given a “fairly enthusiastic” response to a question about what Knibbs carried in his pouch; he had listed “dope”, money, and a “38 hand gun.” Horace then pointed out that Vandenaneele had “never made reference to a 38 to police or in the preliminary inquiry.” Vandenaneele retorted, “It never was asked.” Horace proved him wrong, reading from the transcript of the preliminary hearing in April 2006. He read a section just after Vandenaneele had been asked about seeing a woman in the New Wings taking a gun from Knibbs after shots had rung out.

Preliminary Inquiry
Question: “Have you ever seen that particular gun before to your knowledge?”
Vandenaneele: “No.”
Question: “Had you ever seen Rocka with a gun before?”
Vandenaneele: “No.”

After reading this section of the transcript, Horace reminded Vandenaneele that when he had given this testimony during the preliminary inquiry, “You were under oath, so you were telling the truth.” Vandenaneele responded, “Yes.”

Horace never got the chance to challenge Vandenaneele on his claim that Knibbs was the “King of the New Wings”. There was no need to. Judge Silverman nixed this testimony before the jury could hear it. Silverman had said earlier that he was going to limit testimony about Knibbs’ life as a drug trafficker; he didn’t want the jury exposed to generalizations that relied on hearsay. In fact, Judge Silverman screened some of Vandenaneele’s explosive testimony with the jury out of the courtroom. He listened to Vandenaneele testify that Knibbs “had marked his territory as a drug dealer in a certain spot. If you’re an outsider and you try to come in there’s always consequences.” One drug dealer can’t “interfere” with another drug dealer, Vandenaneele, a former cocaine addict, explained. Vandenaneele also testified that Knibbs had extended credit for drugs and that he had been a good customer, “certainly” always paying back. Judge Silverman announced that when it came to evidence of drug dealing, he did not intend to allow the prosecution to “just pile it on”.

One of Horace’s attempts to make Vandenaneele appear to be a liar got prosecutor Michael Luchenko’s back up. Horace challenged Vandenaneele on trial testimony he had given on Thursday about the moments inside the New Wings prior to the outbreak of gun shots. Vandenaneele had testified that Knibbs and Liscombe had come down the stairs from the second floor escorting a “friend of Echo’s” out of the building. Vandenaneele assumed the third man was a friend of Echo’s since there was verbal pressure being placed on him to disclose Echo’s whereabouts. Horace attempted to show, by reading transcripts, that Vandenaneele had changed his version of this incident as time passed:

Trial transcript, Apr. 2007
Question: Who was hollering and screaming?
Vandenaneele: I recognized Ian’s voice and Rocka.

Preliminary Inquiry, Apr. 2006
Question: Who was doing the screaming and hollering?:
Answer: Ian was.
Question: Was Rocka saying anything at that point?
Vandenaneele: Not to my awareness

Luchenko countered Horace by reading the jury a Q & A from the preliminary transcript that revealed that Vandenaneele had not changed his story as much as Horace was leading them to believe:

Preliminary Inquiry 2006
Question: Who was screaming and hollering?
Answer: I recognized Ian’s voice and Rocka.

Luchenko asked the judge to allow further follow-up questioning of this witness. Horace argued that Luchenko simply wanted to “muddy the waters” after defense successes. Luchenko cited a cross-examination precedent from 1951 but Judge Silverman gave it short shrift, deferring to a lawyer and left-wing City councilor who for years had practiced law just two blocks from the New Wings Hotel: “As our late friend Mr. Rankin used to say, ‘That case and a whole bunch of others!’”

Murder witness caught lying

Susan Panich is a liar.

That is, if you believe the testimony of Michael Vandenaneele at the murder trial of Dennis “Rocka” Knibbs.

Michael Vandenaneele went to the New Wings Hotel to buy cocaine on the night of the shootings, April 4, 2005. Vandenaneele, a 40ish, balding man with reddish hair, dressed in a mid-blue shirt with pale green dress pants, is a former cocaine addict turned journeyman welder. Susan Panich, who lived at the New Wings Hotel at the time of the shootings, is a current cocaine addict; she told the court that she uses cocaine “every day”, and uses alcohol as well. Panich, 45 years old, scrawny, with shoulder length blond hair, testified that she was the “girlfriend” of Ian [Liscombe] – she said she didn’t know his last name -- who was shot and killed on April 4, 2005. She acknowledged that she had sold drugs with him. –

Vandenaneele knew Susan Panich from purchasing drugs from her and her associates at the New Wings: “Ian, John, Rocka, Susan, Tee, Donnie.” He added, though, that he would “often buy from Rocka”, the defendant Dennis Knibbs. The two “became good friends” and Vandenaneele would stop by the New Wings to say hello to Knibbs, “not necessarily to buy dope.” Vandenaneele also got along well with Ian [Liscombe], who “was a cousin to Rocka, he had told me”.

Vandenaneele had begun his testimony on Thursday afternoon, and was now back on the morning of Friday, April 13th to finish up. On Thursday, he had testified that when he arrived at the New Wings, he had stopped at the front office on the first floor to chat with the young desk clerk, Brett. While there, Vandenaneele witnessed Knibbs and Liscombe coming downstairs and asking around about the whereabouts of “Echo”, whether he was in the building. “Echo” was a nickname for Habib, one of the men who would be shot within minutes. Echo had hit Liscombe over the head with a bat a few days before the shootings, according to Susan Panich’s testimony.

Next, Vandenaneele testified, he saw Ian Liscombe walk to Room 15 on the first floor and push on the door. “Ian was first,” he said “and Rocka was probably two to three steps behind Ian.” The door opened a little but then slammed shut again. “At that time, Ian attempted again, and that’s when Rocka came in behind him.” Then, as though somebody on the other side had suddenly released it, “the door flung open with Ian going in first.” Ian’s foot “went to kick at something” and missed. As Vandenaneele watched, “the barrel of a gun came up.” Vandenaneele was 6-8 feet back from the door at the time. “I didn’t see hands” on the gun, he said, but he estimated he saw about 18” of the barrel – although the previous day, he estimated that he had seen about 2 feet of the barrel of the gun. “As it came up, the gun went off….I heard the blast of a gun and Ian fell into the floor of Room 15….He fell forward”.

“Rocka pulled out a baton”. He pulled it out of a pouch, “like a Gucci bag”,that Vandenaneele had seen him regularly wear on his chest. “It’s a telescopic baton,” Vandenaneele specified, “and they extend.” He described the baton as black, made of three sections, each about 8” long. When asked what the baton was made of, he replied, “Steel”. Vandenaneele said he had seen this baton previously in Knibbs’ possession, “in his room, on the table.” But this was the first time he’d seen him carrying the baton in his pouch. He had previously known Knibbs to use his pouch to carry “his dope”, along with his money and a 38 handgun.

“As Ian was falling to the floor, the baton was being extended”, Vandenaneele clarified. Knibbs “forward motioned it; it extended.” Then Vandenaneele heard what sounded to him like someone being struck by the baton. “Someone screamed.”. Vandenaneele was within a foot of the door when he heard this.

“I moved down the hall to Room 11”, he added. Why?, the prosecutor asked. “Ian’s girlfriend was there and she was calling me.” What was her name?, the prosecutor asked. Vandenaneele responded, “Susan”.

Susan.

I perked up. The usually drowsy voice of the prosecutor perked up.

What did Susan look like?, the prosecutor asked. “Tiny little blond girl,” Vandenaneele responded. He estimated her to be about “5 foot tall” and about 35 or 36 years old.

This was Susan Panich, who had persistently testified on Thursday that she had not heard anything or seen anyone while in her room or in the corridor of the New Wings on the night her boyfriend, Ian Liscombe, and another man were shot in Room 15.

“I was bringing my laundry in from [the laundromat at] Jackson and Hastings….I was back and forth,” Panich had testified. “I think I was outside when I heard what might have been a shot; I don’t know….I came in, put my laundry away.”

Panich was asked by the prosecutor if she had seen anything as she came in through the front door to her room on the first floor, which she confirmed was Room 11. “I didn’t see anything. I put my laundry inside and I took off.”

When asked who, if anybody, she had seen, Panich responded, “I didn’t see nobody in the halls….I was in there not even three, five, minutes.

When asked if the door to Room 15 was open or closed, Panich testified. “Closed”.

Did you hear anything unusual? “No”. Did other people come out? “No.”

Vandenaneele, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was exposing Susan Panach as a liar, continued his testimony. “Susan was yelling for me to come down the hall so I went down to Room 11.” The door of Room 15 where the gun had gone off was closed as Vandenaneele moved up the hall. “As I walked to Room 11, I heard “glass smash, a table break, a guy screaming, and moans.” At room 11, he recalled, “I stood between the door frame and the hallway; I could see to the other end of the hall.”

“After the commotion of the table smashing, I heard more wrestling,” Vandenaneele continued, “Then pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Six pops.” He recalled that the sound “wasn’t a very high pitched pop.” But the pops were “rapid, continuous” with “not much time between each”.

Vandenaneele was “trying to listen to Susan and the commotion” at the same time. Then he recalled, “Things went silent for a minute or two.”

The door to Room 15 had by this time opened. When the popping stopped, Vandenaneele recalled, “John Jr.” [Whalen] standing in front of the door of Room 15 screaming, “They’re dead; they’re dead; they’ve been shot!”

Vandenaneele had now moved back down the hall toward room 15. He saw Knibbs come out of the Room 15 holding “a revolver in his left hand”, a black 38. Knibbs “came out in a crouched position with the tumbler down, trying to reload more bullets in the tumbler.”

This was not the first time Vandenaneele had seen this revolver in Knibb’s presence. He’d seen it “sitting on a table top in his room.”

Knibbs managed to load more bullets into the gun, Vandenaneele noted: “He did get them in there and the tumbler pulled back.

“Did someone intervene?”, the prosecutor asked.

Yes, a girl from the second floor.” Vandenaneele knew her by her nickname “Tee” and recalled her having identified herself as “Rocka’s girlfriend” the first time he met her.

As the gun was being reloaded, she yelled at Knibbs, “That’s enough, that’s enough! Stop! Stop!” Knibbs passed her the gun. She moved in the direction of the office.

As Tee left, Vandenaneele recalled only Knibbs and “John Jr.” Whalen remaining.

“Rocka was screaming for a cell phone. ‘Give me a cell phone! Give me a cell phone! I need to phone the ambulance!” Vandenaneele described Knibbs’ voice as “hysterical”. Knibbs moved toward the office looking for a phone.

“At that time I made my move to leave,” Vandenaneele recalled. But first he took a look inside Room15 and saw “two guys on the floor in a pool of blood.”

“John Jr. headed down the stairs. Rocka too. All three of us left the building.”

Why did you leave?, the prosecutor asked Vandenaneele. “I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it happened.”

Vandenaneele ran down the stairs five or six steps after John Jr. Whalen and Knibbs. They exited onto Dunlevy St. and headed up to Hastings St. On foot, they traveled through an alley between Hastings and Cordova. Then they “jumped into a cab at the Patricia Hotel” on Hastings.

It was not only Michael Vandenaneele’s contradiction of Susan Panich’s testimony that left her looking like a liar, it was also discrepancies between her testimony and the statement she had given to police two years earlier on the night of April 4, 2005, following the shootings. The prosecutor alluded to these discrepancies in court when he repeatedly responded to her testimony by handing her sections of her statement to police to read to “refresh” her memory.

The prosecutor handed her a section of her statement to police following her court testimony that she had seen nobody and heard nothing when she was in her room or in the corridor of the New Wings Hotel the night of the shootings: “Again, with regard to what you heard, I’d like you to read from your statement to police.” Panich gave the statement a perfunctory glance and retorted, “I can see I was totally out of it. It’s not true. I’m sober now.”

The prosecutor had a few minutes earlier attempted to refresh Panich’s memory with a section of her police statement, after questioning her about “any conversation that you may have heard between Rocka and Ian about ‘roughing someone up’”. “Did you hear that?”, he had asked her. “No”, had been her response. “You spoke to police on April 14, 2005,” he reminded her as he handed her a “portion of your statement to police” on that date. “Does it help you recall any conversation?” She would concede only that, “I know Ian was a little pissed off.” The prosecutor continued to politely, softly, press her on the issue of this conversation: “Did you hear any conversation about what could be done?” “I never heard anything”, she responded.

Who knows if Susan Panich will be called to account for what appears to be perjury. Judge Silverman showed her on Wednesday that he was not going to allow her to show disrespect for the court. He refused her request to be released from jail after she had to be arrested Wednesday morning at her hotel room near Main & Hastings for failing to appear to testify. He told her that he believed she would “be feeling better tonight” after using drugs, and that she was likely to fail to show up to testify on Thursday morning. He impressed upon her, “This is a murder trial.”

Vancouver Police: from forensic fumbling to racial profiling

A cliffhanger. That’s how the murder trial of Dennis Knibbs ended it’s third day on Thursday.

Michael Vandenaneele, a former cocaine addict turned journeyman welder, testified that he dropped by the New Wings Hotel to buy cocaine the night of April 4, 2005. He was chatting with the desk clerk, when he saw Dennis “Rocka” Knibbs and his cousin Ian Liscombe come down the stairs with a “guy in arms”. The guy was “a very close friend of Ekoh’s” – Ekoh being a nickname for Nabib, one of the men Knibbs is accused of shooting that night. Liscombe and Knibbs were yelling at the man they were holding, demanding to know Ekoh’s whereabouts, whether he was in the building. When they got to the first landing, they told the guy to get out of the building.

Liscombe and Knibbs then stood around on the landing. “We were congregating, talking,” Vandenaneele recalled. A few minutes later, a native guy living in Room 15, Charlie being his surname, came out of his room. “That drew Ian’s attention”, Vandenaeele said. “Ian asked him if he had seen Ekoh or if Ekoh was in his room.”

Liscombe was headed back upstairs with Knibbs trailing when, Vandenaneele says, he doesn’t know “what possessed” Liscombe to first walk over to Room 15 and open the door. The door opened about 18 inches, and then slammed back in Liscombe’s face. “Rocka was right behind Ian trying to push the door. Rocka was pushing higher on the door ‘cause he’s a little taller than Ian.” Then Vandenaneele spotted the shot gun: “I could see about 2 feet of a barrel….when the door flew open, you could see the barrel of the gun.” The witness who went over the sequence of events a couple of times said, “That’s when one gun went off, I seen Ian fall to the floor.”

It was here that spectators were left hanging. Who was on the other side of the door when the gun went off. Who was holding the shot gun? Was it Ekoh? Ekoh of course ended up dead.

Vandenaneele’s story is corroborated by testimony given this morning by Laura Lee Wayne, an admitted prostitute and daily user of “rock” cocaine and sometimes heroin. Wayne, a thin 25 year old with bangs and neck length brown hair with an obvious auburn rinse, lived at the New Wings at the time the shootings occurred. She had been upstairs “getting ready” to go out to work as a prostitute, when she heard a loud noise downstairs, followed by several more loud noises. When she went down, she saw Knibbs standing near Room 15. “I heard him say, ‘He shot my cousin first.’” His voice sounded “scared” to her. She also saw a shot gun sticking out of a bag on the floor, which she said she picked up and took downstairs to police, although the transcript of her earlier police interview has her saying she “got caught with the shot gun.”

Statements made in a police interview by another witness, Susan Panich, an admitted cocaine addict, also dove tails with Vandenaneele’s testimony. Panich, a skinny 45 year old with brownish blond shoulder length hair, was living with her boyfriend Ian Liscombe at the New Wings when he was killed. She and Liscombe sold drugs. In her view, Liscombe and his cousin Knibbs got along “very well”. But she acknowledged that there was some animosity between Liscombe and Echo, the latter whom the prosecutor described as having a “dark complexion and a goatee”. In her view, Echo “was jealous of Ian.” who was more successful at selling drugs. “He tried to cut Ian’s grass”, she said, explaining that she meant “take his customers away.” She testified that Echo hit Liscombe over the head with a bat, requiring 1 ½ -2 inches of stitches. “Echo was barred out of the hotel the day he hit Ian on the back of the head.”

The prosecutor asked Panich to recall “any conversation you may have heard between Rocka and Ian about ‘roughing someone up’”. But he could get no acknowledgement from her that any such conversation had occurred. The prosecutor pointed to a section of the transcript of her interview with police, asking her to read it, “Does it help you recall any conversation?’ She would concede only that Liscombe was “a little pissed off.”

In addition to reluctant witnesses in withdrawal, today saw the return of the VPD’s mistake prone forensics expert, Constable Mark Christensen. Yesterday, Christensen had admitted that his report had falsely identified a large bullet hole as being on the left side of a victim’s chest and a small one being on the right side when in fact it was “the opposite.”

Today Christensen came to court armed with a voluntary admission that he had incorrectly reported the condition of the shot gun when it was delivered to him from the New Wings crime scene. When he opened the bag and removed the shot gun, the slide containing a fingerprint of Knibbs’ was not in a forward position as he had reported yesterday, but back. And the chamber was not closed as he had reported, but open.

Christensen also acknowledged that in his 2005 report, he had mistakenly identified a fingerprint on the shot gun as being from the left “ring” finger when in fact it was from the left “middle” finger. “I wrote the wrong thing down in my report,” Christensen said. “You made a mistake”, defense lawyer Glen Orris asserted, driving the point home as the jury listened. “So you’ve worked your way back from patrol since then?”, Orris kidded him. “I’m not infallible”, Christensen politely retorted, adding that he’d like that fact noted on the record, and shown to his wife. Laughter.

Christensen excused his false identification of the fingerprint as being from a left “ring” finger instead of a left “middle” finger as a “typographical error”. He was prone to that excuse. He had used it yesterday when it was pointed out that he had identified Constable McLaughlin, the officer who had taken the crime scene photos, by an incorrect badge number in his report. [McLaughlin had taken the crime scene photos, Christensen explained, with a camera with a malfunctioning flash. Many “didn’t turn out” and had to be taken again at a later date.]

There was one mistake made by the VPD in this case, though, that could prove more embarrassing than any made by Constable Christensen, a mistake inadvertently revealed by Orris: racial profiling. As Orris and the judge reviewed sections of the transcripts of an interview police conducted shortly after the murders with Laura Wayne, a 23 yr. old resident of the New Wings, Orris mentioned that the VPD questioner had “asked her about her relationship to black guys”, specifically if it was a “pimping” relationship. Wayne, who looks Caucasian but has been identified by police as "native", told police that this was not the case, that she was “an independent”.

Laura Wayne did not appear to be under Knibb's control, although she was living with him in Room 50 until "they shut the Wings down" after the shootings. "We were sort of seeing each other but not really", she testified. She had actually developed a "boyfriend-girlfriend" relationship with another New Wings resident, John Whalen, whom she called John Jr.

Laura Wayne did not make herself easy for a man to control, as the beleaguered prosecutor found out: she barked at him in response to questions, once saying "Fuck!"under her breathe, and twice firmly chastised him, "I think you've established that!" Her rebellious nature also permeated the police interrogation of her immediately following the shootings. When prodded about her drug use, she told police, "I'm a professional; I should get a badge for it". She went on to say, “It’s like taking a shit and wiping your ass. I do it everyday

Overall, testimony today opened wider the window onto one of the worst addresses on the Downtown Eastside. Tenants behind “every second door” of the New World Hotel had drugs for sale, according to Panich. “Ian, John, Rocka, Susan, Teeth, and Donnie”, were selling drugs out of there, according to Van Vandenameele. Two machetes were found slid between the mattress and the box spring in Room 15, according to Christensen, and a bullet was found on the floor as well as a couple of shell casings. Lots of small clear plastic baggies were found in the room too, the type Christensen knew to be used to package drugs for sale. And drugs were found in the pocket of a beige coat. Police style batons were not an uncommon sight, according to Panache: “A lot of the guys have them”. Knibbs’ had such a baton in his hand as he stood in the hall after the shootings, according to Wayne. Liscombe had a handgun in his room according to Pinach, a handgun which Wayne told police he carried in his pocket “like a fuckin’ wallet”.

A reminder that the New Wings world was not confined to a few bad blocks on the Downtown Eastside came during questioning of Constable Christensen. Orris asked about a search warrant listing blood stained clothing, a police style baton, and a 38 caliber revolver, served to a “young woman who was obviously frightened” at 1421 East 2nd Ave. A nicer neighbourhood.

Did the Olympics kill the San Francisco Pawn Shop?

The San Francisco Pawn Shop is dead. After 50 years, its doors on Hastings St. across from Save On Foods will shut at the end of August.

Jeff, the owner, confirmed the closure to a Downtown Eastside pensioner who dropped in this morning to see about a watch. The pensioner knows Jeff, whom he says took the place over from his dad. "You still see his dad, Mitch, working in there, part-time."

"They sold the property to people from Hong Kong", the pensioner explains. "Concord Pacific, people from Hong Kong." That's a huge lot; it goes right back to the alley, the pensioner explains.

People on the Downtown Eastside will miss the San Francisco Pawn Shop, the pensioner believes. "People would go in there with all kinds of stuff", he recalls chuckling, "TVs, radios, clocks, watches, diamond rings."

But the San Francisco Pawn Shop owners may have gotten out of the business at the right time. The population of low-income residents who rely on a pawn shop to get through the month, is shrinking on the Downtown Eastside. The upcoming 2010 Olympics has jacked up property values and roughly 12 buildings that have provided cheap rooms to poor people have or are being sold for re-development.

The pensioner believes that with the sale of the San Francisco Pawn Shop property, things are going according to plan for the right-of-center City Council. "They want the area cleaned up by 2010, for the Olympics. They don't want people coming here and seeing all those poor people."

As the Olympics come, the San Francisco Pawn Shop goes. The paper work for the pawn shop property has been completed, the pensioner says. "It's a done deal."

Carnegie staff lock doors and gossip

Downtown Eastsiders have long viewed the closing of the doors of Carnegie Community Centre for a staff meeting from 9 'til noon every welfare day -- the third Wednesday of each month -- to be an excuse for staff to have a schmoozefest. There may be some truth to that.

One staff person reported that at the last meeting, staff kept digressing into gossip instead of focusing on business. Gossip about what? "That blog," the staff person explained, referring to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer.

So now that we know what was going on inside Carnegie's locked doors, what was going on outside? The usual. A throng of people -- those who don't drink or drug on welfare day and may even be broke as cheques sent via mail don't arrrive until late morning -- was hanging around on the front steps waiting for the Centre to open. Just because it's welfare day, doesn't mean people aren't interested in checking their e-mail on a public computer or using the library.