This trial started November 24, 2003 and is
ongoing.
April 7, 2004
morning
by guest writer Erin
afternoon by
Hilary
RCMP Corporal Shinkaruk is on the stand
today. He’s talking about the sneaky plans to meet up with Burns
and Rafay and get to know them. There was one plan to pretend to
be house painters and bring over beer and sexy ladies or “good
looking” female operators or something to chat up, nay, “stimulate
conversation” with Burns and Rafay. That I find hilarious.
Then Corporal S. gets going on about an
intercepted phone call from Crimper’s hair salon to Sebastian to
remind him of his appointment the next day. They decided that the
opportunity was right to have their first meet with Burns.
I can see Burns and Rafay whispering to each
other about something and sort of body language-ing to each other.
I wonder if they get to hang out in jail? Do they play dominoes and
talk about how hot Kathy Ireland is? I bet those Canadians are
really into Kathy Ireland. Do they see each other at all besides in
court? Hm.
The tape of the intercepted call, maybe about
20 seconds long, is played for some reason. It’s totally
uninteresting, it’s just a call to remind Burns that he has a
haircut. That’s all.
Now Shinkaruk is talking about how he changed
from his “outlaw biker” look to a yellow shirt and jeans, either
black or blue, and either python or cobra cowboy boots, with a
couple of chain bracelets and necklaces to take on a “softer look”
to approach Burns since he wasn’t as tough as an outlaw biker
blahblahblah. For like 5 minutes he goes on, with Konat just sort
of interjecting things like “ but of course you’re not saying that
every person who rides a motorcycle is an outlaw, right?” and “but
Burns and Rafay didn’t ride motorcycles” and other stuff that is
just totally not related to anything. How this Canadian dude tried
to look like a guy who goes to nightclubs and is kind of Las Vegas
is so inane I keep giggling and feel like a dick. During this
stretch of testimony, Robinson objects a couple of times for
“narrative” and “irrelevant” and what not. I think he means
“completely fucking boring” as well. I mean, this is the first time
the RCMP is meeting Burns, which sounds exciting to me, but all of
this is taking so long.
The plan for the meeting is for Shinkaruk to
pretend to have locked his keys in his car and ask Burns for help.
We get a run down of what kind of car Corporal S. is driving and
about how he got it and how its plates can’t be traced blahblah.
Then the first contact, Shinkaruk asks Burns if he knows anything
about (aboot) breaking into cars. Burns says no, but Shinkaruk gets
Burns to give him a ride to a hotel to get his spare keys.
Morning break, and the lawyers seem to share my
opinion that the witness is pretty dull, there is discussion of what
they’d been doing to kill time over the last couple hours. We’re
talking paper clip art here.
Hat lady has a fabulous combination of denim
and denim hat/jacket combo today. I especially am enjoying the
police guard guys text messaging all the time. I think that’s what
they’re doing.
Okay, back to court. More and more about going
from Crimper’s to the Bay Shore hotel. Finally, we get some info
about what was said. They talked about cars, which cars were cool,
how the Trans Am Shinkaruk had wasn’t as cool as a Porsche (duh).
Shinkaruk pretends to get his keys, buys Burns a beer, and gets a
ride back to his car, where he suggests that they hang out for
longer. Shinkaruk drives them to some strip club out by the airport
to relax and buddy up, and had called Haslet so he could meet up.
Now we go over why, why would you want to take a suspect person to a
bar and buy them beer? Why might you do this? Uh, so the kid will
get drunk and spill the beans about crime? DUH! JESUS. OK.
So, they chat about philosophy and what not and
how Burns wants to make a movie that is a “cultural critique about
today’s society” according to Shinkaruk. He says that he knows a guy
who has extra money just layin’ around and could invest.
“I want to talk for just a minute about
strippers” says Konat, and once again, I giggle out loud. It is
apparently typical for the RCMP to take people out to strip clubs to
loosen them up. It’ s a relaxed atmosphere for them to bro down at,
supposedly. Hearing this man talking about “nude attractive women
taking their clothes off” is just way too much, and both I and the
guard sitting on the bench nearest me giggle, furtively glancing at
each other. Oh, good, now we get the info on why most of the stuff
in the notebooks that the RCMP have submitted in the evidence is
written on the right page of the notebook but not the left. Well,
the left is for diagrams. Phew, that was a burning question.
Shinkaruk warns Haslett that Burns “talks
different,” which is clarified to mean that he talks about different
things than the usual guys they go undercover on, and even the
people he hangs out with in general. I am going to take a leap and
guess that Shinkaruk wasn’t used to hanging out with high school
kids who thought they were really smart and cool and such. And
c’mon, “a cultural critique on society” - I’m sure this little 18
year old kid had so much critiquing to get done. Ah,
pseudo-intellectual youth. Shinkaruk says Burns didn’t have much
interest in the strippers.
It seems like there’s so much to be said about
gender and sexuality here, but I think it’s almost saying itself at
this point. Cops and beer and suspects at the airport strip joint
with the smarty-pants kid not paying much attention to the “nude
attractive women.” Sigh.
Then a long discussion about how the RCMP are
reimbursed for buying beer during undercover operations, how much
beer they drink, how they manage to get receipts at bars without
seeming weird, etc. Burns usually maxed out at 2 beers.
And then, happily, the lunch break, and I am
outta here.
(Hilary)
I come in at about 2:25. Could only manage to come by for
about 45 minutes, in lieu of a lunch break where I could actually
eat a meal. When I come in, my immediate sense is that the
courtroom is packed- but that’s more an illusion of the tight
quarters. There are several people present though: the same thin
blond woman from Monday, Noel from KCJ, a redheaded middle aged
woman- probably a legal professional, the CBS reporter and camera
man (rare!), and of course, hat lady. Throw the guards into the
mix, and you’re left with a pretty crowded space (well, compared to
the empty row upon empty row in the 9th floor court
room).
James Konat is questioning a witness about
intercepts (taped phone conversations). It doesn’t take me long to
figure out that the witness is Shinkaruk, one of the undercover
officers-posing-as-criminal. He is in his 30’s. He looks like the
type of guy who played football in high school (or maybe hockey,
since he’s from Canada): kind of beefy, but with that kindly
teddy-bear quality. His wavy light brown hair is kept short and
neat. I come in as he’s saying that he never listened to the
intercepts prior to the completion of Project Estate. James plays a
brief taped phone conversation between Sebastian and Haslett. It’s
from April 14, 1995. James asks Shinkaruk to verify that those are
the voices of Sebastian and Haslett, and to interpret the meaning of
the message. Shinkaruk says he recognizes the voices of Burns and
Haslett, and Haslett is saying he will pick Burns up later than
originally planned.
Now James’ questioning is about why Whistler
was chosen as the location for the Stolen Car Scenario in April of
1995. Shinkaruk points out that Inspector Henderson was the one to
actually make decisions about the direction the project takes,
though Shinkaruk himself also had input on the location of
Whistler. Shinkaruk also says this is the first time he’d used a
“stolen car” scenario like this one. This scenario was chosen
because Shinkaruk wanted to engage with Burns in a relaxed manner
for 1 hour or more. He says one reason Whistler was chosen was
because, being a ski resort, it was a good site to demonstrate that
Haslett, posing as crime lord, and those employed by him
(Shinkaruk), had financial means. (Guy from Pro Video comes and
sidles past me…maybe they were having more technical difficulties
earlier?).
Shinkaruk says Burns was not aware of where
they were going, or what they were going to do. This is typical on
these operations, for the safety of the officers (the target will be
unable to devise a plan of attack against the officer, if they
suspect something), to make sure outsiders do not unexpectedly
become involved (it’s a lot harder for a target to bring a friend
along if they don’t know where they’re going or why), to ensure that
the target actually is forced to participate in the situation, and
because this is also typical protocol in the real crime world
(criminals frequently do business this way to guard against being
followed by police informants and so on). Burns didn’t seem
bothered by not knowing where he was going or what was going on when
Shinkaruk picked him up. Burns didn’t ask questions about it on the
way.
Shinkaruk picked Burns up around 7 pm on April
13, 1995 (Jeez, or was it the 14th? I swear I've heard both
dates used interchangeably). He didn’t bug the car on the way up,
as cars don’t usually provide a good, “evidentiary” recording due to
road noise, stereo blare, etc. (Officers usually plan for times
when they believe they will be having an “evidentiary conversation,”
or conversations about the crime, and organize a talk at a quiet,
small/intimate location. This was not one of those times). He took
notes on their in-car discussion after the ride was over though.
According to his notes, in an easy-going, relaxed manner, they had a
“general intellectual conversation on a wide variety of topics.”
Sebastian mentioned that he thought he and his friends were among
the most intelligent people in the world, and that he had no use in
his life for less intelligent people. He also sharply criticized
religion, characterizing it as a means by which the ignorant and
less intelligent are kept complacent and happy with their
situation. They moved on to movies: Burns cited The Godfather and
Scarface as good flicks for their realism, and considered Al
Pacino’s Tony Montana to be a most honest, realistic portrayal.
They also discussed Woody Allen’s scandal with adopted daughter Soon
Yee (in the news at the time), and Burns said he respected Allen’s
directorial works.
They pulled into the parking lot of a bar
called Dusty’s in Whistler. Shinkaruk noticed that Burns suddenly
appeared nervous and flushed. Burns said out of nowhere that if he
and Atif crossed the border into the States, they’d be roughed up by
the border police for bodily samples tying them to the crime. It
was a total non sequitur from Shinkaruk’s standpoint, so he was
confused momentarily. Burns said he had misunderstood the
conversation, and they moved on. They stepped inside Dusty’s to
meet Haslett. Shinkaruk introduced Burns to him and left. During
the five minutes or so Shinkaruk was away from Haslett and Burns, he
went to a convenience store in hopes of purchasing gloves. During
the ride over, Shinkaruk began to be concerned that this stolen car
plan would be too much for Burns, and that he would refuse to go
along with it. He felt that if he found a way to make the scenario
“extra secure” for Burns, he might still do it. Unfortunately, he
failed to find gloves at the nearest convenience store. Instead, he
came back to the bar with an aerosol air-freshening spray. He
decided to tell Burns that if he sprayed it on surfaces he touched
in the stolen car, he could destroy whatever prints he left, while
also mangling his scent so as to be undetectable by police dogs.
Shinkaruk admits that to this day, he doesn’t know if there is any
truth to this method.
By the time he returned to Dusty’s, Haslett had
already told Sebastian that he was to drive a stolen car back to
Vancouver. The three men sat together for several minutes, then
Burns and Shinkaruk depart together, leaving Haslett at the bar
alone. Shinkaruk asked Burns if he was ok. Burns expressed that he
was unaware that this was going to happen, and wanted to know what
to do if he was pulled over. Shinkaruk turned the question back to
him, asking “what do you think you should do?” Burns replied that
his instinct would be to run, and Shinkaruk tells him he should
probably go with that feeling then (gee, thanks for the advice).
Shinkaruk drives Sebastian to a ski supply
store, hands him $50, and sends him inside for gloves. Then they
drive to a parkade (which I take to be Canadian for parking
garage). Shinkaruk parks his Trans Am, and walks to a nearby (but
out of Sebastian’s line of vision) Crown Victoria. He takes a Slim
Jim and an ignition punch with him, which he makes sure Sebastian
sees as he exits the vehicle. Of course, he didn’t need these tools
in reality- the car was rigged and ready to go- but it added to the
realism of the situation. Shinkaruk drives the Crown Victoria down
three levels of the garage (or up? He seems confused as to which),
and Burns follows, driving the Trans Am. Then they traded cars.
Haslett had instructed Burns that his job was to “stay on 6,”
apparently a crime-world saying for watching someone’s back. That’s
what he was doing for Shinkaruk as he “stole” the Crown Victoria
(this is the same car, if trial diary readers will recollect from
Schwartz’s testimony, that had a baby seat and toys in it to make
it seem like a family car.)
Shinkaruk instructed Burns to obey the speed
limit and do nothing else to attract the notice of the police on the
drive back. Around 10:50 pm they arrived at the Bay Shore Hotel in
Whistler. They parked in the lot, and Burns got back into the Trans
Am with Shinkaruk. Haslett told them to meet him at the Fog and
Suds restaurant.
3:10 pm
At this point, the court takes an afternoon break, and I have to
go back to work!
|
