The Last Gang in Town Read online

  It’s uncertain if the attorney general’s office took a direct interest in the case because the ministry believed that a coroner’s inquest was insufficient, or if they felt that, in the broad interest of justice, the evidence should be given the priority of a judge’s decision. Either way, it added a further tone of gravity to the case. No matter who had instigated the charges, if convicted, Brian Honeybourn would be fired from the police department and face prison time.

  Honeybourn recalls that no one in the homicide department felt comfortable filing the charge. “This was back in the day when police laid charges instead of the Crown. When you filed a charge, you personally took an oath that you believed there were probable grounds for it,” says Honeybourn. “But everybody in homicide had already learned about what had happened and thought I was innocent. So Lionel Smith, who was the head of the fraud division, filed it just to put an officer’s name down for the paperwork.”

  Constable Brian Honeybourn.

  PHOTO: Courtesy of Brian Honeybourn

  Brian Honeybourn had joined the Vancouver Police Department in 1968, the same year as Esko Kajander and Paul Stanton. And like them, he’d wanted to be a police officer for as far back as he can remember. Honeybourn joined the police reserves in 1966 at the age of nineteen, and had spent rainy Friday and Saturday nights in a black police slicker directing downtown traffic at the intersection of Granville and Smithe streets. When he joined the department as a full constable at the age of twenty-one, he was assigned to the undercover drug squad. “This was when all the hippies were down on 4th Avenue. We were down there for a few months and had accumulated about thirty-eight arrests, which was a big number for those days. It was mostly heroin, marijuana, and LSD,” Honeybourn recalls. When he went undercover as a heroin addict, the department organized a temporary tattoo of track marks on his arms so he could convincingly mingle with heroin dealers. Like all young police officers, he then did a year of regular uniformed patrol duty before he was posted to the District.

  Honeybourn states that he had never previously encountered Danny Teece on his patrol beats or even recalled regular prior dealings with the Clark Park gang. But like any Vancouver police officer at the time, he was aware of them and the almost mythic standing they seemed to have achieved. “Every criminal in the East End claimed to be a Clark Parker at one time or another, it seemed. They weren’t a gang of organized crime figures; they were punks and delinquents. But they did cause serious trouble, and there were a lot of complaints from residents and businesses in the neighbourhood. I remember a guy named Max Rosenthal who ran a five-and-dime store at Commercial Drive and 10th. One night they poured gasoline through his mailbox and tried to burn his store down.”

  With the announcement on December 1 that Honeybourn’s gun had fired the shot that killed Teece and that he would be formally charged with criminal negligence causing death, the shooting was again the lead news story of the day. For Honeybourn himself, as overwhelming as the experience had already been, an even greater stress lay ahead as he prepared to defend his actions. He knew that it had been an accident that occurred while he was doing his job—but he needed to convince the court.

  While criticism of police from The Grape and The Georgia Straight continued, many others expressed their support of Honeybourn; the Main Street police station received dozens of letters addressed to him. “I received a lot of mail from the public, a lot of letters of support. The public was very good to me,” he says. Honeybourn was grateful for it, and kept the letters along with his police statements and materials that would proceed from the preliminary inquiry hearing. The letters, excerpts of which are published here for the first time, capture the opinions of many Vancouverites then, opinions that counter those expressed in The Grape or Straight.

  A number of those who wrote to Honeybourn believed that the media had taken the word of a criminal over a policeman, citing Wadsworth’s interview in the Vancouver Sun. One emotional writer stated that he had “thrown up” when he read that the newspaper believed Wadsworth, “a convicted felon, [and] furthermore an escapee from the bucket.” He accused the Sun of “blow[ing] it up to sell papers and damn police officers.”

  Another man, who lived a block away from where the shooting had occurred, wrote: “We learn with sorrow of your charge. It seems strange that we hire you to protect us. To confront the irresponsible and subversive segment of our society in the middle of the night while we are secure in our beds: then we deliberate hours to criticize a decision necessarily made in seconds. We are confident that you will be exonerated and wish to commend you for your selfless service to us.”

  Other sympathetic letters expressed anger, and with Christmas approaching, many people opened their chequebooks. One woman, the manager of a downtown hotel, wrote, “Hope you don’t let this experience spoil your Christmas. I have talked to many people. They all feel as we do. We would have done the same thing. I would have shot all four. We need more men like you. Please buy a little xmas [sic] cheer with enclosed cheque.” “In a lot of the letters were cheques saying ‘police under this kind of scrutiny and off work for doing their job shouldn’t be allowed—go take yourself out for dinner,’ and stuff like that,” Honeybourn says. “The cheques I sent back, and my wife and my mother answered all the letters.”

  Some correspondence was sent directly to the police station addressed to Chief Constable John Fisk. Someone from Burnaby wrote: “A policeman’s job is to protect the public and uphold the laws of our so-called society … There is no question in my mind the problems with our present society are a direct and flagrant disregard of some of our younger generation towards the community and the policeman who represents such community.”

  In another letter sent to Chief Fisk, a senior living in the Marpole neighbourhood wrote: “As citizens of Vancouver for sixty years, my husband and I feel that the Police union (or whatever) should stand by their fine young men. You send them into a dirty job, dealing with ‘punks’ who are drunk or on drugs or goodness knows what else. Surely the policeman should have his gun cocked and ready to shoot wisely in an instant if the hooligans do not obey. Otherwise, when will we get law and order? If people (young or old) will tangle with the law, they must understand they must take the consequences (even being shot). We feel it is most unfair to publicize this ‘disciplining’ of Constable Honeybourn. It’s only catering to open line sob sisters [i.e., talk-radio call-in shows]. Keep this stuff out of the papers. Ignore reporters and just try to keep law and order as you are appointed to do.”

  The preliminary hearings for Regina vs. Brian Honeybourn took place at Vancouver’s Main Street courthouse. Today, in an officer-involved shooting causing death, a trial might not be heard for two or three years, but the preliminary inquiry began on December 13, 1972, barely two weeks after the shooting.

  Instead of a local judge, it was determined that a judge from outside the city with no direct ties to the Vancouver police would be seen to have no personal bias in the case. Provincial Judge Eric Winch from Parksville, the senior magistrate for the district of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, was selected for duty. Winch began the inquiry by reading the statutory warning to Honeybourn that he need say nothing in his defence at the hearing, but that if he did, anything he said would used in a higher court trial. Honeybourn replied, “I have nothing to say at this time, Your Honour.”

  City prosecutor Stewart McMorran would try the case for the Crown, and George Murray and Jack McGivern would act as lawyers for Honeybourn. While Honeybourn’s statement was entered into evidence, the main testimony from the police would come from Esko Kajander, Ian Battcock, Bruce Campbell, and Corporal Calvin Reynolds. Much of the remaining testimony came from fifteen eyewitnesses, most of them residents of the immediate area surrounding the alley behind the Prince Edward Manor apartment building as well as staff from nearby Mount Saint Joseph Hospital. Among the witnesses was Richard Underwood, the second-storey tenant at the Prince Edward Manor who was awakened that night by the noise below hi
s window. He revealed the remarkable coincidence that he knew Danny Teece from around Clark Park—not specifically from the gang but through friends who “knew people” around the area.

  The theory that three shots had been fired instead of two was raised in the inquiry. Media critics of the police suggested that they had made up the story, which was designed to leave the impression that other guns were involved and thus police were justified in drawing their revolvers. Most of the eyewitnesses were reasonably sure they’d only heard two shots. Both Battcock and Kajander insisted they’d heard three shots. The one witness who was certain she’d heard three shots was the furthest from the scene. Mrs Lily Pokrandt, who lived a street and an alleyway away, heard two shots in short succession and then a third. When McMorran cross-examined her, asking if she’d heard the sound of gunfire before that night, she assured the court that she had; Mrs Pokrandt had lived in Germany during World War II and stated she was acutely familiar with the sound.

  While most of the attention in the lead-up to the hearing had focused on Brian Honeybourn, the inquiry delved into what was perhaps the real turning point of that night, the moment when Bruce Campbell drew his revolver. When Campbell slipped on the wet ground and accidentally fired his gun as he fell, he arguably set the tragic events in motion. During the first part of Campbell’s testimony, he described in detail the earlier part of the night. But when questioning reached the point where the police cars boxed in the stolen Chevrolet and Campbell got out of the car, he stated: “As I got out, I drew my gun from my holster, which was a hip holster. At this time I heard—or I personally shouted, ‘Police, stay where you are’… I started to run west between the wall and the left front fender of the police vehicle… As I was running, I slipped, lost my footing, and the gun discharged into the ground. The gun was pointed downwards at the time.”

  Prosecutor Stewart McMorran then asked what some considered the most important question of the hearing: “Could you tell His Honour what was the reason you drew your pistol or your revolver?”

  “Well, I drew my revolver because at the time I felt it was a potentially dangerous situation,” Campbell replied.

  Honeybourn’s lawyer George Murray cross-examined Campbell, asking for more detail. He noted that Campbell had been with the VPD for seven years and had considerable training. Campbell, in other words, was familiar with the proper police protocols for drawing a revolver. “Is there a situation that is described as a potentially dangerous situation, or a regulation governing that?” Murray asked him.

  “There’s no regulation specifically governing every situation,” Campbell replied. “It is more or less left to the discretion of the individual constable involved.”

  Murray then dismissed the witness. Campbell might have thought there would be nothing further, but Judge Winch asked how Campbell’s gun had been fired.

  “I really don’t know, Your Honour,” Campbell said. “Here again, I can only assume that I had my finger inside the trigger guard. I know the gun was pointed downwards … I can only assume that when I slipped, I tightened up, and the gun fired.”

  The defence made considerable effort to question the men who had stolen the vehicle. Wadsworth, Melo, and Blackburn were given the protection of the Canada Evidence Act, ensuring that they were free to describe how they had stolen the car and TV set without fear that they would be charged after testifying.

  Defence lawyers will often advise their clients to wear a suit to courtroom hearings and appear as well-groomed as possible to avoid, at least superficially, looking like a guilty person. Robert “Bum” Wadsworth appeared on the witness stand in the same clothing that he wore when he had turned himself in: jeans and a red mack jacket. As an escapee from the Haney Correctional Institute at the time of the shooting, he personally was prison bound, and reasoned it wouldn’t have mattered how businesslike or professional he dressed for the hearing. But the nature of his attire would come up in court. As George Murray grilled Wadsworth about several details, the lawyer took Danny Teece’s red mack jacket, which had been entered into evidence, and held it up to Wadsworth. It was identical to the one Wadsworth wore. Murray asked him in a hectoring tone if the jacket was an identifying mark of the Clark Park gang. Wadsworth laughed.

  “Are you finding something funny about this, witness?” Murray asked.

  “Yeah, you,” replied Wadsworth.

  When the time finally came for Gary Blackburn to take the stand, he felt tense and uncomfortable as the lawyers went over the details of the night of the shooting. “I remember thinking over every question and if I should answer it. Even though they told me that what I said I’d done was under immunity by the Canada Evidence Act, I wondered: if I said something that the others had done, would they get charged? I was nervous.”

  For much of Blackburn’s testimony, he kept his eyes on Brian Honeybourn, wanting to see his reactions. But as the questioning progressed, Blackburn realized that he was not there to testify about the tragic death of his friend, but about whether or not Honeybourn could be charged for it. “It felt like they were just trying to make us out to be the bad guys,” he says.

  At the end of Blackburn’s testimony, Judge Winch asked him if there was anything else he wanted to say that was material to the case. Blackburn immediately thought of that night in jail after the shooting when the police officer nicknamed Flashlight had goaded and threatened him. “Well, just that the cops were laughing and saying ‘your friend’s dead,’” Blackburn replied.

  “Well, that’s unfortunate, perhaps,” Winch said. “But what I’m concerned about is how the thing [the shooting] happened.” Then Winch dismissed him from the stand.

  Gary Blackburn left the courtroom quickly. He was angry that the court didn’t want to know more about how Flashlight had acted and what he had said, taunting him about Teece’s death. But Winch was correct; the court’s duty was only to address the case at hand. “To me, sitting through the whole hearing felt like something just to make it look legitimate why they were able to shoot a seventeen-year-old boy,” Blackburn says bitterly. “The whole thing seemed like a joke. They didn’t ask us the right questions.”

  The hearing lasted a full day and a half. Supporters of Honeybourn considered the verdict just and expedited, but Danny Teece’s family and friends in the East End felt the judge had given the evidence a cursory whitewash. Winch did not even need to recess the court to give his judgement. He began by thanking both teams of lawyers for allowing him to ask his own questions during the proceedings. Winch emphasized this was not a case in which the court had to “take one side or another side, but rather that we seek to find what is the truth and what occurred.”60

  Justice Winch found no credible evidence that police had failed to identify themselves that night and even suggested that Wadsworth had committed a misstatement to the court. He addressed Bruce Campbell’s actions in first drawing his gun and laid some of the blame with him, stating, “There is the duty of every officer when he draws his gun to use that gun in a skillful and reasonable manner. It may well be that constable Campbell’s actions are not criminal negligence per se, but in the circumstances it could be examined in that light.”61 But Campbell wasn’t on trial; Winch moved on to discuss the defendant in the case.

  Considering Honeybourn’s actions on that dark night, Winch suggested that Teece had been the author of his own death by stealing the car and putting himself in a situation in which he would struggle with Honeybourn for the gun. Winch stated that Honeybourn had taken out his revolver only when he thought that Campbell had been shot. In the final words of his summation, Winch said: “Honeybourn was completely justified in doing everything he did.

  Front-page coverage of the verdict.

  SOURCE: The Province

  It is a tragedy that Teece lost his life, especially during the course of a stupid, useless crime. It is equally useless that a police officer should be put on trial for doing his duty. The crown has not proven there exists a prima facie case against Const
able Honeybourn and I, therefore, discharge him from this charge.”62

  With that, the court was adjourned. A number of Honeybourn’s friends and supporters, including more than a dozen VPD officers in the courtroom gallery, stepped up to congratulate him and his lawyers. A Province photographer also approached; cameras had not been permitted in the courtroom, so a sheriff ushered the photographer out, but not before he got a shot that made the front page of the paper the next day, with the accompanying headline, “Officer Clear in Lad’s Death.”

  Brian Honeybourn, however, was not jubilant, as he’d been responsible for a loss of life. But he was relieved that the court recognized that the shooting had been an accident and that he’d done nothing wrong.

  When the ruling was announced, most news outlets and columnists responded favourably to the judgment. Radio personality Jack Webster interrupted his daily CKNW radio call-in show to announce “the good news that Constable Brian Honeybourn’s case has been dismissed.” Vancouver Sun columnist Jack Wasserman gave an even more supportive statement in his column, noting: “On the basis of the evidence at the preliminary hearing, a strong case can be made that Constable Brian Honeybourn was a brave man who, despite the appearance of a gun battle, drew his revolver and continued the chase in that dark area.”63

  Alternative papers such as The Georgia Straight and The Grape took a different approach. In the lead-up to the preliminary inquiry, The Grape had suggested that Teece had been “stalked, hunted, and gunned down by the Vancouver police.”64 And in a provocative article published after the hearing had concluded, Grape writer Peter Burton stated: “In the death of Danny Teece, the police investigated themselves, and their friendly prosecutor acted more like their defence counsel in his eagerness for the verdict.”65