In the line of fire

The city's Dirty Harry cop Pablo Palacios expects no police backing in his upcoming hearings with the Ethics Commission

by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

As he flips through two massive scrapbooks in which articles about him are carefully laid next to photos of local criminals now dead, deported or in prison, Pablo Palacios reaches some blank pages. The controversial 39-year-old MUC police lieutenant expects to be able to fill the blank pages after April 15, the date of his latest hearing before the Police Ethics Commission.

Palacios, who describes himself as the city's most infamous police officer, is facing disciplinary action on charges that he slapped a Crescent Street bar owner in August 1995. Palacios cannot discuss details of the case, other than to say he is confident that the charges will prove false.

After rising to the rank of lieutenant, Palacios found himself transferred to Station 24 in 1990. "When I got there, Little Burgundy was a monolithic criminal department. Every second apartment building had a gate [crack house]. Most of the local cops were francophones who didn't understand--or care--about the problems." Palacios persuaded a crack dealer named Kirt Haywood to become an informant in exchange for a promise not to raid his crack house.

Within a year Palacios's team, with Haywood's information, had shut down about 30 crack houses in the area. "People were no longer afraid to walk the streets. We'd arrest guys driving BMWs with $2,000 in their pockets, along with three welfare cheques they'd never bothered cashing."

But in November 1991, Haywood shot a cocaine supplier in a drug burn and was immediately sought by the police. An MUC SWAT team officer, in a case of mistaken identity, ended up shooting Marcellus François.

Haywood then gave himself up to Palacios and, as a bonus, tipped off Palacios about a dealer named Osmond Seymour Fletcher who was allegedly selling crack cocaine in Campbell Park. Fletcher was arrested on gun charges but then released in a bureaucratic foul-up.

Days later Haywood, who was awaiting trial for attempted murder, was discovered dead in Pointe Claire, a case which remains unsolved. Finally, in mid-November 1991, Fletcher was killed when his gun went off in a scuffle with a police officer who was attempting to arrest him. Once again, Palacios was not involved in the operation.

"But at this point everybody said that Pablo had him [Fletcher] shot because he was a snitch to the media," Palacios says. In order to clear the air, Palacios agreed to allow TV cameras to accompany him on his duties. As a result, he was brought before the Police Ethics Commission for entering a woman's apartment after knocking and saying "pizza." "We had been casing the apartment for about four days and we knew that was the code word for those who wanted to buy crack," Palacios says.

Although Palacios felt he was treated positively by the media and the public in general, he remembers how little support he received from higher-ups in the force, "You've got to be in the old boys' club," he says. "They look for yes men."

That thread is one of many which are likely to arise in his upcoming hearings on April 15 at the Police Ethics Commission, which could possibly see the public washing of much dirty police linen.

Palacios, expects to return to the force. "But I don't have the sacred flame that I once had for law enforcement," he says. "The flame has burned out."