The last day of August this year marked the fifth anniversary of the infamous Bloor Street altercation which led to the horrific and violent death of off-duty bike messenger Darcy Allan Sheppard.
“DAS5” was chalked in bold, three-foot-tall blue letters on the same road surface where Sheppard fell, after the final fatal strike dealt by a fire hydrant, which the Toronto Police Service describe in their comprehensive reconstruction report.
Many Canadians will recall the case since the mainstream media first focused on evolving speculation concerning the alleged criminal conduct of the driver of the vehicle involved in Sheppard’s death – hotshot former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant who was then newly-minted David Miller-appointee as Invest Toronto CEO. Bryant was charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous driving causing death. The charges would later be withdrawn.
For Sheppard’s 76 year-old father Allan Sheppard Sr., the intervening years have been frustrating.
The elder Sheppard has been back and forth by bus from Edmonton where he lives to Toronto several times each year in his quest to access police files and provincial judicial documents related to his son’s death.
Again, last weekend he stood unbowed and decked out in black DAS5 T-shirt surrounded by more than 30 supporters – and a single local news camera crew – near the fire hyrdrant where the younger Sheppard died from head injuries and a gaping wound in his side.
The “ghost bike” that was originally put in place on Bloor during a memorial bicycle ride attended by many hundreds of outraged citizens, was re-installed at the spot.
Allan Sheppard Sr. suggested that the ongoing support “demonstrates a strong conviction among us that the handling of the case did not do justice to our family member and friend or to the Canadian justice system.”
Ask most Ontarians about the case and they will remember it as the story about the crazed messenger who was justifiably killed after he “jumped on” a car and “attacked” Bryant and his wife who were out celebrating their anniversary.
This was the story that emerged from special prosecutor Richard Peck’s 68-page presentation to Judge P. Bentley explaining why the charges were being dropped.
Ordinarily, when charges are dropped, as in this case because the prosecution finds little chance of obtaining a conviction, no further explanation is required.
But here, Peck told the judge, “Given the widespread public interest in this matter, I wish to set out in some detail the applicable law and key features of the evidence which, together, inform my decision.”
History will eventually decide just how much the public interest has been served by the Special Prosecutor virtually reading the defence’s untried version of events into the public record as fact, while downplaying the Toronto Police evidence that Bryant may have been at least equally complicit in ending Sheppard’s life.
The input of key independent eyewitnesses who watched in horror that summer night, and then had their lengthy, gut-wrenching statements video-recorded by homicide detectives the following morning, seems to have been ignored.
When the story, spun by PR hired guns Navigator Ltd., was splashed across frontpages, the negative reaction to cycling in general had escalated to the point that some members of the bike riding advocacy community sought to disassociate themselves from the incident.
Toronto was already hearing such divisive rhetoric from the city councillor who would become mayor: “My heart bleeds for them when I hear someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”
It was halfway through that protracted election season, May 25, 2010, that all criminal charges against Bryant were dropped. Toronto has seemingly moved on. So has Bryant. DAS5 phase B, the fifth anniversary of the charges being dropped, is scheduled for May 25, 2015.
One hopes that Darcy Allan Sheppard has found in death the peace he was so often denied in his brief lifetime, knowing he has a few still championing his legacy.
Wayne Scott is a retired foot/bike/transit messenger, City of Toronto cycling ambassador and former chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee.
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