They won’t take “guilty” for a verdict.
But a city is expected to quiescently accept “not guilty” as a two-thirds outcome. Because we are a civilized society. We are also a society, across Ontario, which has never convicted a cop of murder in the line of duty.
Public outrage over the police shooting of Sammy Yatim must have spent itself in the days and weeks after the fatal July 2013 confrontation between the knife-brandishing teenager and Const. James Forcillo — viewed thousands of times on footage captured by citizen cellphone video.
Had there been no video — from bystanders, from cameras inside the streetcar from which panicked passengers had fled — would there ever have been charges of second-degree murder and attempted murder laid against the constable? Defence lawyer Peter Brauti, in a wide-ranging refutation barely couched in alleged respect for the jury’s six-day deliberation, alit on that “social media” evidence as a scourge, a complicating factor, which induced him to seek a change of venue away from Toronto and judge-alone trial from the Ministry of the Attorney-General. Both entreaties were rejected.
“What I think is it started off with a trial-by-YouTube because what we know is, within seven minutes of the incident taking place it was posted all over YouTube,” Brauti told reporters during a scrum outside court Tuesday after Forcillo was found guilty of attempted murder — but not the more serious charge of second-degree murder or manslaughter.
“We started behind the eight ball on this one.” (more...)
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