Now that the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has laid second degree murder charges against Constable James Forcillo in the shooting death of Sammy Yatim – and the family of the slain teen has pronounced themselves “relieved” – we can all breathe a little easier knowing that the wheels of justice are turning as they should. Maybe.
The SIU was quick to come to its conclusion that there are reasonable grounds for a charge, director Ian Scott making his findings just three weeks after Yatim was killed during a standoff with police on a Dundas West streetcar. The SIU statement was short on the whys and wherefores surrounding the charge.
But it’s probably fair to say that the video evidence was difficult to overlook – nine shots fired at close range at Yatim, several after he was already felled – as he stood alone holding a knife on a streetcar, apparently more a threat to himself than anyone else. The public outcry was swift and certain. And the condemnation of Forcillo’s actions came from some surprising quarters.
But the fact the SIU has laid a charge doesn’t put the matter, or questions about our system of police oversight, to rest. The Yatim family still faces a long and uphill legal battle against what will be a well-financed opponent, not to mention a legal system that’s arguably not only stacked against them, but that has historically been reluctant to convict police of wrongdoing, let alone serious charges of second degree murder.
The charge against Forcillo won’t allay public cynicism. Some are still asking why other officers at the scene, including a second who fired his taser when Yatim was down, aren’t being investigated. Online, a common theme ran through reaction to the charges announced Monday: what took so long? The vaguaries of investigations into alleged police wrongdoing are difficult to get our heads around.
However, the questions about transparency and issues of police accountability – yes, those highfalutin notions gnawing at us again – can’t be overstated. Public confidence was shaken in the police system of oversight long before the Yatim shooting. Just ask the families of those who’ve had their loved ones killed in altercations with police. The horrific video evidence in the Yatim case just brought the issue into focus for the rest of the public. Before this week’s charges, the political machinations surrounding the case had already given rise to widespread skepticism.
Last Thursday, barely 48 hours after police chief Bill Blair announced that he’d asked retired justice Dennis O’Connor to look into police policies and training when it comes to dealing with people in crisis, allegations of a possible conflict of interest surfaced.
Turns out that he learned former justice happens to be employed by the law firm Borden Ladner Gervais, which has a well-earned rep of representing cops, some pretty bad apples, in civil suits. More recently, the firm’s lawyer’s represented the Toronto Police Service in a multi-million-dollar class action brought by Sherry Wood into the police treatment of protestors during the G20 (which was dismissed by the way.)
Not that the firm’s choices should necessarily reflect negatively on O’Connor. Everyone’s entitled to a defence. And O’Connor is by all accounts highly respected.
But given the questions that have already surrounded the chief’s appointment of O’Connor – that it was to provide political cover – arguably, even the mere appearance of a conflict is problematic.
O’Connor may come back and repeat recommendations of countless inquests that have already been held into police shooing deaths, which may serve to provide the impetus to actually do something about it this time anyway.
But we would be naïve to think that the wheels of justice don’t turn differently for police accused of unlawful conduct or, for that matter, people in positions of power.
Take the police’s handling of the other politically-charged matter dominating headlines these days, those crack cocaine allegations swirling around our mayor, Rob Ford.
There, the chief’s reluctance to address the allegations in a meaningful way publicly, has raised doubts. What’s already known of the mayor’s keeping company with gun and drug runners, for example, should have been enough to cause his removal – at least until the cloud hanging over his head cleared.
However, save for whatever the city’s major news orgs have been able to uncover, it’s unclear just where the investigation, if there is an investigation, is headed. There were some assurances offered this week.
Three months after allegations first surfaced of the existence of a video allegedly showing the mayor smoking crack (and uttering homophobic slurs), the police have reportedly been interviewing the mayor’s former staffers about some of the unseemly company the mayor keeps, according to the latest frontpager published in the Star on Saturday.
One in partiulcar, Alessandro “Sandro”‘ Lisi, a sometimes chauffeur of the mayor’s and reputedly, his drug dealer, has a history of drug possession charges and thuggish behaviour, including criminal offences involving assault charges against three different women, according to the Star.
Besides adding the most explosuve pieces to the crack story puzzle since it broke in mid-May, the Star’s most recent revelations are noteworthy for another very important reason. It seems the cops are actually investigating attempts by Lisi and the mayor’s head of logistics, David Price, to retrieve the crack tape the mayor claims doesn’t exist.
Those attempts may or may not be related to a shooting incident at the Dixon high-rises in the city’s northwest end, a home invasion at the Windsor address of another of the mayor’s high school friends where the alleged video may have been shot, and a stabbing incident at the Don jail.
The Star’s latest revelations offer some confidence cops are on the Ford case. But Ford still occupies the mayor’s chair. The question has to be asked why.
enzom@nowtoronto.com @enzodimatteo
