"Brutality and
insolence of policemen have increased greatly, and the Police Commissioners
seldom, if ever, convict officers for these offenses. HUMBLE CITIZENS OF ALL
RACES TODAY ARE IN MORE DANGER FROM THE POLICEMEN’S CLUBS THAN THEY ARE FROM
THE ASSAULTS OF CRIMINALS. "
- Frank
Moss
Again
the media are helping to keep the impunity of a heinous crime perpetrated by
the officer James forcillo. The savage execution and tasering of Sammy Yatim in
the tram carried out for officers trained to kill and degrade the inert body of
a young boy is unacceptable in a multicultural
society as is Canada. All the overwhelming evidence; "Toronto Star"
marks history of the impunity of atrocious crimes committed in this country.
The family of Sammy Yatim is mourning the loss of their loved one, and with the
hope to get justice. But until now the Canadian judiciary demonstrated to be a
system Sterile of injustice.
Const. James Forcillo trial marks a historic moment in Canada
The charge — second-degree murder — is rare enough in police circles but citizen video of Sammy Yatim’s death makes this a trial like no other.
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Nathan Denette / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo
The trial of Const. James Forcillo in the shooting death of Sammy
Yatim on a Toronto streetcar in 2013 begins Tuesday. Forcillo, 32, faces
a charge of second-degree murder.
When James Forcillo walks through the doors of
a downtown Toronto courthouse Tuesday, the constable will follow a path
few Canadian police officers have taken.
The short, stocky 32-year-old cop will fight
his way through a throng of cameras and reporters, enter the largest
available courtroom — used for high-profile cases due to its capacity —
and appear as the defendant in a murder trial.
Nationwide, a second-degree murder charge
against an on-duty police officer is exceedingly rare. A conviction is
unprecedented. If Forcillo is found guilty in the 2013 shooting death of
18-year-old Sammy Yatim, he will be the first Toronto police officer ever convicted of murder for an on-the-job death.
Landmark, watershed, historic — suffice it to
say, Forcillo’s trial will be closely monitored for all that it
represents. While the 12-member jury selected last week will rule on the
guilt or innocence of one officer, it will unofficially decide on
issues much greater.
“In some ways, you could say the officer is
not the only person on trial,” said University of Toronto criminologist
Scot Wortley. “I think the legitimacy of our current police
accountability system, our current civilian oversight system, is also on
trial.”
Yatim was killed in a hail of bullets
just after midnight on July 27, 2013. Moments before, the teenager had
exposed himself and pulled a small knife on unsuspecting passengers on
the Dundas St. W. streetcar.
By the time police arrived, Yatim was alone on the streetcar. Shortly after, Forcillo shot Yatim eight times. As he lay on the floor dying, he was Tasered by another officer.
Forcillo was charged one month later by the
province’s Special Investigations Unit, initially facing a second-degree
murder charge. Then, in a decision last year that still puzzles legal
experts, the Crown added a second charge: attempted murder.
The much-anticipated trial comes amid
unparalleled public scrutiny of police locally, nationally and
throughout North America. In Toronto, critics place Yatim alongside
other well-known names as yet another example of the unjustified police
killing of a person in mental or emotional crisis — another Edmond Yu, Michael Eligon, Sylvia Klibingaitis.
Just as the high-profile recent deaths of
black men by U.S. law enforcement sent people to the streets in protest,
Yatim’s shooting galvanized Torontonians, inspiring outraged
demonstrators to clog downtown streets shortly after his death.
Hundreds of thousands of people feel they
witnessed Yatim’s death, thanks to widely disseminated citizen video.
Bystanders’ cellphone cameras recorded the scene as Forcillo fired his
gun nine times at Yatim, six of those shots coming as the teenager lay
on the floor of the streetcar.
The video in this case is vital — without it,
many lawyers say it’s unlikely there would have been a trial. Also
attributable to the citizen videos is an exceptional phenomenon: the raw
emotion felt by so many members of the public prior to the beginning of
a trial.
“People are watching this trial closely
because they want to see that justice will be served,” criminologist
Akwasi Owusu-Bempah said.
But what justice looks like in this case
depends on whom you ask. Amid what many have called a crisis of public
confidence in law enforcement, some officers and police associations
argue that anti-police sentiment has gone too far. Some quietly fear
that a guilty verdict in this case could result in cops failing to use
force in situations where it’s warranted.
Shortly after Forcillo’s arrest, Toronto
Police Association president Mike McCormack said the officer wasn’t
afforded the presumption of innocence. “This is exactly trial and
conviction by YouTube,” he said.
For Forcillo — who has pleaded not guilty —
the criminal trial is a long-awaited opportunity, his defence lawyer,
Peter Brauti, said. “He hasn’t been able to tell his side of the story,”
Brauti told reporters last month.
That story has the potential to change public perception — of Yatim, of the shooting, of Forcillo’s guilt or innocence.
“There are those who steadfastly stand behind
the police and will not question their actions at all. And there are
those who perhaps are on the other extreme and question every police
action,” Wortley said. “But it will be interesting to see where this
case sits with the average citizen.”
The role of video
Ask legal experts what makes the Forcillo case different from other cop trials and you hear one word, repeatedly: video.
Bystander and surveillance video has already
played a vital role in the trial. To Christopher Schneider, a Brandon
University associate professor who studies policing and technology, the
video represents a historic first: Never before has there been an
on-duty fatal police shooting that was recorded and uploaded to the
Internet in advance of police statements about the video.
“As best I can tell, this is the very first video of its kind, in Canada, ever,” Schneider said.
As a result, citizens interpreted the events
on their own, forming passionate opinions about what transpired. “Almost
always, the police tell us what we saw,” he said.
Or, in cases without independent witnesses or
video, police simply tell the public what occurred. In short, the
existence of strong video evidence of the shooting is a game-changer.
“It used to be that the police could shoot and
kill people, and it was a lot easier for them to change the stories,
embellish or lie or not include certain facts and their word was taken
as gold by the courts,” said Davin Charney, a Toronto criminal lawyer.
Now, they can’t get around the video — and
that’s going to increasingly be the case, due to the use of body-worn
cameras and the frequency of citizen-shot cellphone video, Charney said.
But there are the Yatim shooting videos that have been released to the public, and then there’s the video yet to be seen.
Expected to be played at trial is surveillance
footage from inside the streetcar in the moments before Yatim was shot.
It may bolster the case against Forcillo, or complicate the narrative
that he unjustifiably shot Yatim.
Use of force and self-defence
There is, of course, no doubt who pulled the trigger. One high-quality video from a member of the public shows
Forcillo drawing his gun and firing two distinct bursts of shots at the
teenager — the first three causing Yatim to fall to the ground and
then, six seconds later, six more bullets.
A central question is whether the force Forcillo used was justified.
“(Forcillo) will be relying, over and over
again, on self-defence,” said Reid Rusonik, a Toronto criminal lawyer
not connected to the case.
In cases where self-defence is being argued,
the law gives significant consideration to an individual’s perception
that he or she is in danger of grievous bodily harm or death. But
there’s no mathematical calculation to determine permissible force,
Rusonik said.
“There’s no law that says it’s five shots that
you’re allowed, or seven . . . The Crown’s going to have to say that
even though there’s a broad range, even the most generous settings of
that range were exceeded.”
Wortley added that Forcillo is going to have
to explain why he was the only officer on scene to shoot. Several
Toronto cops responded alongside Forcillo, but none fired their guns.
“That could be key to the case,” Wortley said.
Statements of defence in a civil suit
filed by members of Yatim’s family against Forcillo and the Toronto
police may provide clues about the defence strategy. According to those
statements, filed in court last summer, Yatim “aggressively” refused to
drop the switchblade in his hand and continued to dangerously wield the
knife after Forcillo’s initial three shots, prompting the officer to
fire six more times.
The defence claims allege that Yatim continued
to hold a knife “in a dangerous manner” after he was shot eight times,
and needed to be Tasered to be brought under control. The defence
statements also claim Yatim voluntarily consumed “an intoxicating
substance which caused or contributed to his irrational or dangerous
behaviour.”
Indeed, one of the things Forcillo’s legal
team is likely to do is attempt to reduce public sympathy for Yatim by
painting him as violent or dangerous, Wortley said. “It’s a classic
defence strategy.”
What we can learn from other trials involving Toronto police officers
When Const. James Forcillo was charged with
Yatim’s death, he became the seventh on-duty Toronto officer to be
charged with manslaughter or murder in 25 years, since the creation of
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit in 1990.
But none of the other officers, charged in
connection with three deaths between 1997 and 2010, were convicted: all
were eventually acquitted by judge or jury.
Legal experts say the fact that so few are
found guilty may reveal a general reluctance to discredit a police
officer, a professional sworn to uphold the law. When testifying in
court, cops typically enjoy the “enhanced credibility” that comes with
the job, said David Tanovich, a law professor at the University of
Windsor.
But recent sharp scrutiny of police actions
demonstrates a shift away from the assumption that a police officer’s
word is golden, he said.
“Given what we’ve seen with carding, given
what we’ve seen with police perjury, and the number of times that judges
have taken the extraordinary step of concluding the police officer
lied, misled, exaggerated, I think that enhanced police credibility
might not be as strong today as it was,” Tanovich said.
That scrutiny, Tanovich said, combined with
the presence of citizen-shot video, changes the game so significantly
that little can be drawn from previous acquittals of Toronto police.
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