Pubdate: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 Source: Hope Standard (CN BC) Copyright: 2002 Hope Standard Contact: http://www.hopestandard.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1397 WOMAN ANGERED BY POLICE OVER FOUND DRUGS Finding a grocery bag of fresh marijuana while out on a walk with her elderly mother, a local woman was rather shocked to be told police were too busy to arrive and she would have to personally deliver it to the local detachment. A police dispatcher, identified to her only as #40, told her police were too busy to come out to near Fraser River pipeline crossing on Highway 7, says the woman. Now, she is questioning why local police would not want to see where she found the drugs to check out the area for a grow operation. Afraid to leave the marijuana behind should a youth come across it and smoke it, she says, she was equally afraid to put it into her personal vehicle and drive it through town to the detachment on Old Hope-Princeton Way. Doing her duty as a citizen just "wasn't worth it," she says. "If someone finds drugs the police don't just tell you to drive it in yourself.... Where is the community involvement. The community awareness is shitty here." The woman, who asks not to be identified in case the drugs were left there for someone else to pick up, says that she called police at 1 p.m., Monday afternoon, after finding the plastic grocery bag ducked within some blackberry bushes. "There was tons of garbage around, but this bag looked strange because it was sitting" upright on one of those wooden pallets the truckers use, said the woman. "I don't drink, I don't do drugs, and now I am just shaking," she said, moments after dropping off the bag to police. Attending the local detachment office as well was not a good experience, she say. Police simply added to her fear that she or her family may be connected in some way to the drugs after it appears that officers were not even notified by the dispatcher of her arrival. She says she had to wait for several minutes until finally catching the attention of a RCMP Highway Patrol officer who removed the drugs out of her vehicle and questioned her on the ownership of the van she was driving. "What would have happened if I had been pulled over before I got there? They didn't even know I was coming to turn them in." The Hope RCMP general duty detachment did not return the calls from the Hope Standard, Monday or Tuesday. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake