Parasiris Acquitted

Man acquitted in Laval police officer's death
Updated Fri. Jun. 13 2008 4:22 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
A Quebec jury has found Basil Parasiris, 42, not guilty in the shooting death of Laval police officer Sgt. Daniel Tessier.
The jury emerged with its decision Friday afternoon after beginning deliberations on Tuesday.
The case sprang from a botched early-morning drug raid on Parasiris' home in which Tessier was shot and killed.
Parasiris testified that a group of men entered the home at 5 a.m. on March 2, 2007, and that his wife Penny Gounis was screaming hysterically. He said he thought they were experiencing a home invasion, so he grabbed one of his four firearms for protection.
When someone dressed in black with a white face burst into his bedroom, Parasiris said he fired.
The Crown attacked inconsistencies between Parasiris's testimony and what he said in a videotaped interview. Gounis, who was wounded in the incident, backed her husband's story.
Laval police officers who testified say they repeatedly yelled "police" as they ran up the stairs towards Parasiris's bedroom.
One officer, who rode in the ambulance that took the accused to hospital, testified that Parasiris said, "I thought someone was coming to kill me."
When the jurors headed behind closed doors on Tuesday to decide Parasiris' fate, they didn't know they were missing two details about what happened that night.
The sequestered jurors were not told that Parasiris' charter rights were violated by Laval police officers when they burst into his Brossard home -- the warrant they used had been declared illegal.
Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer had declared the warrant illegal in motions heard before the trial began in March.
He lashed out at the Laval police for failing to be thorough, saying they did not prove their suspicion that Parasiris was dealing cocaine and they failed to act within the confines of the warrant in entering the home before 6 a.m. Additionally, he said they had no grounds to forcefully enter the home and should have rung the doorbell.