POLICE BRUTALITY IN TORONTO AND THE DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENT BASED ON RACE
These are three stories that were reported in one of Toronto’s white daily newspapers. Note the different outcomes for the police officers depending on their race and the race of their victims.
A judge has found a police officer not guilty of breaking a drug-dealing reggae musician’s jaw with his knee during an on-street detention.
Ontario provincial court Justice Ann Nelson acquitted Const. Jason Goss, 36, of one count of assault causing bodily harm on Marvin Anthony Small, 31.
Small testified at the trial in July that a police officer kneed him “full force” in the jaw and broke it while he lay handcuffed on a west Toronto sidewalk on suspicion of carrying drugs at around 3 a.m. on April 23, 2008.
“I am satisfied that there was an opportunity, albeit a very limited opportunity, for someone other than officer Goss to have assaulted Mr. Small,” the judge said in her 67-page ruling, which she read out in an Old City Hall courthouse Tuesday.
Goss testified that neither he nor any of his fellow officers broke Small’s jaw in what he described as an uneventful arrest.
“Overall, Officer Goss was a strong witness,” the judge said
She found Small’s testimony problematic, although there was powerful corroborating evidence for some of his story.
Small told different versions of how his jaw was broken on the morning it happened, Nelson said, noting “It’s almost as if Mr. Small's story is being formulated as it is being told and retold.”
Small was in the courthouse, but left before the judge finished reading her decision.
“There is no justice,” he said. “It’s like the system is against me and the system is going to stand up for police.”
On the day of his arrest, Small said he was at St. Clarens Ave. and Bloor St. W. — an area in which he dealt drugs – when he saw two police officers driving by in an unmarked car.
He said he walked south on St. Clarens to avoid the hassle of dealing with the officers, even though he was carrying no drugs, but they pulled up.
Small said he was tightly handcuffed and forced to lie with his face on the pavement as the officers demanded to know where his drugs were.
The driver “came down with full force” on his jaw, he said.
When other officers arrived, the group pulled down his pants and searched him and he was kicked in the ribs and stomach, he testified.
Eventually the officers took off the cuffs and told him to “get out of here and go home,” Small testified, adding that he was spitting blood.
He said he made his way, in pain, to a hospital and was treated.
Medical evidence presented in court showed his jaw was broken.
But Small failed to identify the officer in court, instead pointing to another police officer, in civilian dress, sitting among spectators.
Defence lawyer Peter Brauti told the judge that this was “a significant hurdle” for the Crown to overcome.
In cross-examination, Small denied telling his girlfriend that he wasn’t sure who the people who beat him up were.
Small also denied telling his uncle, as Brauti suggested he had, that the police put him in one of their cars and drove him somewhere. “I didn’t say that,” replied Small.
Small also denied Brauti’s suggestion that he told a security guard at the hospital where he sought treatment that he was thrown into one of the police cars and beaten.
Small also denied telling a dentist who examined him at Mount Sinai Hospital that five police officers kicked him for 15 minutes, one of them in the jaw, as the dentist testified. “I told her one of the officers kneed me in the jaw,” Small insisted.
Brauti pointed out that Small has given three different versions of whether the officer who broke his jaw was the same one who handcuffed him.
Brauti suggested that Small, who is alleging racial profiling and is suing the police for $25,000, is motivated by money.
Small replied that no one can repay the damage to his jaw and that he still feels pain.
In this case the police officer is white and the man who claims his jaw was broken is African Canadian. Take note that the judge, Justice Ann Nelson acquitted the white police Constable Jason Goss, 36, of one count of assault causing bodily harm on African Canadian Marvin Anthony Small, 31 even though she recognised in her 67-page ruling, which she read out in an Old City Hall courthouse that: “I am satisfied that there was an opportunity, albeit a very limited opportunity, for someone other than officer Goss to have assaulted Mr. Small.” There was a limited opportunity of about three minutes that someone other than the police officer could have broken this African Canadian man’s jaw between the time he left the police station and hailed a taxi to get to the hospital. So Madame Judge acquitted the white police officer.
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Next is the case of two racialized police officers accused of brutalizing a white man who the judge recognized that at the time of his arrest was: “making venomous remarks” to the two officers. However the words of this white man was taken in preference of the testimony of the two racialized officers. The officers were “found guilty of assault causing bodily harm” which legal observers say is extremely unusual. One lawyer who has been practicing since 1963 is quoted as saying: “It’s very, very rare.” An investigation in the fall of 2010 found that it is very rare for charges to be laid against police officers at all, and even rarer for them to be convicted. The investigation also found that “when the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has laid charges one of every four officers sees the charges dropped before trial, many others are acquitted, or, as has happened at least 10 times, an officer is found guilty before a judge who spares him jail time. Some guilty police officers walk out of court with their record wiped clean.” Even when African Canadians and other racialized people are killed by police, there are no consequences for the police.
Two Toronto police constables have been found guilty of assault causing bodily harm during the arrest of a disabled, verbally abusive man in Cabbagetown.
Edward Ing and John Cruz were stone-faced and had no comment on after Justice Elliott Allen gave his verdict in Brampton court Tuesday morning.
Richard Moore suffered fractured ribs and a cut to his scalp that required stitches when he was arrested on the steps of his Gerrard St. E. rooming house on the night of April 24, 2009.
“His injuries are consistent with being struck constantly,” the judge said, adding that he accepted the officers’ testimony that Moore was verbally abusive towards them.
“The preponderance of evidence suggests he was making venomous remarks upon his arrest,” the judge said.
The officers had testified that they were attempting to take Moore into custody on a charge of being drunk in public for his own safety, fearing that he might wander into traffic.
The judge said the officers did not have grounds for an arrest.
He noted that Moore had no trace of alcohol in his system when he was taken to hospital and that the charge of being drunk in a public place was later thrown out of court.
Moore, who was 59 at the time of the incident, was not present in court for the verdict.
No date has been set for sentencing.
Two Toronto Police constables have been found guilty of assault causing bodily harm, which legal observers say is extremely unusual.
“It’s very, very rare,” said Barry Swadron of Toronto, who has been a lawyer since 1963.
Swadron is the lawyer for Richard Moore, 60, who suffered fractured ribs and a gash to his scalp that required stitches back in 2009, after he was arrested for allegedly being drunk in public by Const. Edward Ing and Const. John Cruz in Cabbagetown.
Ing and Cruz were each found guilty on Tuesday of assault causing bodily harm by Justice Elliott Allen in a provincial courtroom in Brampton.
The outcome is notable because such accusations rarely hold up in court, said Paul Bailey, former president of the York Regional Police Association.
He estimated that 95 per cent of accusations of assault against on-duty police officers do not end in guilty verdicts.
“The vast majority of officers are either found not guilty or the charges are stayed or withdrawn,” said Bailey, a past administrator with the Police Association of Ontario.
The charges against the officers were laid by the Special Investigations Unit, a civilian police watchdog that investigates allegations of excessive use of force by police.
A Star investigation in the fall of 2010 found that it is very rare for charges to be laid against police officers at all, and even rarer for them to be convicted.
When the SIU has laid charges, the investigation found, one of every four officers sees the charges dropped before trial, many others are acquitted, or, as has happened at least 10 times, an officer is found guilty before a judge who spares him jail time. Some guilty police officers walk out of court with their record wiped clean.
Ing and Cruz were transferred Tuesday to administrative duties pending their court case. They will remain on administrative duty until they are sentenced; no date has been set.
They will not face the possibility of Police Act charges — which carry the threat of being kicked off the force — until all of their legal appeals are exhausted, said Toronto Police spokesperson Tony Vella.
Both officers declined to comment after hearing the verdict. Their lawyer, David Butt, said it’s far too early to talk about possible appeals, since the case is still before the courts for sentencing.
“It’s far too early to think of those issues,” Butt said.
The trouble started back on April 24, 2009, when the Ing and Cruz were questioning a drunken man on George St., near Gerrard E. and Jarvis Sts.
Cruz told court that Moore walked by and said: “You’re the rich man’s army. Why don’t you take on some real gangsters.”
Seconds later, Moore was running to the doorway of his nearby rooming house with the officers in pursuit.
While delivering his verdict, Justice Allen acknowledged that Moore was verbally abusive to the officers that night, but said that they didn’t have probable grounds to arrest him for being drunk in public.
Tests in hospital later revealed that Moore had no alcohol in his system. The charges of being drunk in public that he faced were later thrown out in court.
The judge also rejected the officers’ testimony that they were trying to protect Moore from wandering out into traffic on Gerrard St. E.
“His (Moore’s) injuries are consistent with being struck constantly,” Judge Allen said.
“The preponderance of evidence suggests he was making venomous remarks upon his arrest.”
Moore was not present in court for the verdict. Reached by telephone, he said he was surprised and gratified by the verdict but is still afraid to leave his home.
“I’m still scared of them (police),” Moore said. “I don’t go out at night. . . I don’t want to get caught out there.”
Moore that he has suffered persistent headaches since the beating. He suffered from migraines, hepatitis C, and a chronically bad back before the incident.
“I’m generally not in good health,” said Moore, a 5-foot-8, 160-lb former printer and ironworker. He said he hasn’t touched alcohol in a decade.
Calls to the SIU weren’t returned Tuesday.
Swadron said he doubts the charges would have been laid if he hadn’t written directly to Ian Scott, the SIU’s director.
Swadron, who is also pursuing a civil action against the officers and the force on Moore’s behalf, said he still hasn’t seen any use of force reports filled out by the officers regarding the beating.
He fears other assaults by police that go undetected because officers don’t fill out use of force reports and victims don’t complain to the SIU.
“It’s a definite gap in the system,” Swadron said. “There has to be some monitoring of persons who are injured. . . There should be someone from the SIU who monitors these things.”
Vella said no statistics immediately available on the number of Toronto Police officers facing assault charges were immediately available.
A Toronto police officer now faces a second assault charge in connection with last summer’s G20 protests.
In December, the Star published a photo of an officer wielding a baton at a Torontoist blogger Wyndham Bettencourt-McCarthy.
Bettencourt-McCarthy, 23, is out of the country and could not be reached for comment, but in December she told the Star she had been struck twice during the protest at Queen’s Park and left with a welt on her right hip.
“I got hit from behind by an officer,” she said. “He struck me twice. Then he turned, and I ran.”
Const. Babak Andalib-Goortani, who has three years service, was arrested Tuesday and charged with assault with a weapon.
The Toronto Police Service said Wednesday that the latest charge followed a complaint received by the office of the Independent Police Review Director.
He is scheduled to appear in court at College Park on March 7.
In December, Andalib-Goortani was charged with assault by the province’s Special Investigations Unit after another officer identified him as the badgeless officer seen in a video apparently wielding a baton during the Queen’s Park takedown of protester Adam Nobody.
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Third case is that of the police officer who was charged in the brutalizing of two white G8-G20 protestors. There were hundreds of mostly white police officers brutalizing protesters and even passers-by who were not protesting at last summer's G8-G20 summit. There were several photographs of police engaged in these brutal attacks. Not surprisingly the officer who has been charged, even if he considers himself white does not carry a recognizable European name. Of the hundreds of misbehaving police officers caught on tape brutalizing civilians in Toronto during the summer the one charged is Constable Babak Andalib-Goortani. Andalib-Goortani has been charged with assault with a weapon after he was identified by at least one other police officer from the phographs that appeared in the media.
Six months after the G20 Summit, an officer has been charged with assaulting a protester at Queen’s Park.
Working with evidence supplied in part by the Toronto Star, Special Investigations Unit director Ian Scott said in a news release Tuesday: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that an officer... committed a criminal offence in connection with the arrest of Adam Nobody on June 26.”
Constable Babak Andalib-Goortani has been charged with assault with a weapon.
Andalib-Goortani is the previously unidentified officer whose image ran on the Star’s front page just two weeks ago.
On Dec. 7, the newspaper ran a story about newly obtained video footage showing the officer’s face peering through a raised visor after he appeared to wield his baton during the takedown of Nobody.
On Dec. 8, a picture was published of the same officer participating in the takedown of National Post photographer Colin O’Connor. Two officers in the immediate vicinity — J. McIntyre and S. Ma — were identified through pictures with their name tags on.
The arrest comes less than a month after the SIU concluded its investigation into Nobody’s injuries, as well as five other cases. While the police watchdog said excessive force was probably used in Nobody’s case, it was impossible to identify the officer. Scott pointed to a YouTube video titled “Toronto G20, Peaceful Protestor Tackled and Roughed Up.”
Police Chief Bill Blair lashed out in a radio interview, saying the video of the 27-year-old stage builder was “significantly tampered with and fabricated.” He suggested police were in the middle of arresting a violent armed offender.
John Bridge, who shot the video, signed an affidavit saying there was a four-second gap in the video because he briefly switched off his camera when he saw police rushing toward him.
Blair later apologized to Nobody.
The chief’s claim unleashed a flood of citizens’ evidence of the volatile demonstrations during the summit of world leaders that turned downtown Toronto into an armed camp.
On Nov. 30, the SIU reopened Nobody’s case, and then released photographs of two bystanders recording his arrest and asked for their help. At least one came forward.
The Star later provided a second video.
Toronto police gave the SIU the names of 15 officers who may have been in the area or had something to do with Nobody’s injuries.
“Through an analysis of the video imagery and additional information gathered during the reopened investigation, SIU investigators determined that three of the named 15 officers may have caused injuries to Mr. Nobody related to his first allegation of assault,” Scott said.
“Twelve officers were designated as witness officers and interviewed,” but none could identify themselves or any other officers in the videos, Scott said.
The three subject officers declined to provide a statement “as is their right,” he said.
Police then gave the SIU the name of a 16th officer who identified one of the subject officers as Andalib-Goortani, said Scott.
When asked whether Nobody’s case is closed, SIU spokesman Frank Phillips said: “At this point, yes. But this time is the same as the last time. If we get new material evidence... then the investigation could be reopened.”
Lawyer Sunil Mathai, who’s representing Nobody, said he was encouraged that at least one officer was being held accountable, but added: “It is regrettable that 12 witness officers were unable to identify themselves or others in the video... This makes a mockery of the duty to cooperate.”
Toronto police had little to say after the SIU statement.
“It’s an ongoing SIU investigation,” said Constable Tony Vella. “We cannot make any comments on ongoing SIU investigations.”
Police union president Mike McCormack kept his comments brief, “unlike Mr. Scott’s fulsome and lengthy media release.”
“The proper forum for this matter is in the courts and not in the media,” he said.
“Our members should be judged on the facts, not just a one-sided story.”
McCormack added the union fully supports Andalib-Goortani.
“I’m grateful that they finally have someone who’s going to stand before a court,” Nobody said Tuesday night. “It’s not something (that can be swept) under the rug.”
Nobody claims that after he was roughed up at Queen’s Park, he was handcuffed, taken behind a police van and kicked repeatedly in the head by two plainclothes officers. He said he was disappointed there are still no answers in his second allegation.
“I would definitely like to see those two brought to justice,” he said.
“A lot of things happened that day and one happened to be on video and that’s why they’re still talking about it.”
Andalib-Goortani is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 24.
According to officers at 31 Division, a Babak Goortani — who one officer referred to as “Bob” — works with the traffic division and was on the 7 a.m. shift Tuesday.
There was no answer at a Richmond Hill condominium under his name.
“The SIU would like to thank videographer John Bridge for coming forward and sharing both the manner in which he shot his video, permitting himself to be identified and providing the unit with his original video footage of the incident,” Scott said.
“The media and other members of the public also played a pivotal role in assisting the investigation.”
The SIU investigates incidents involving police that result in death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault.
