Fifty seconds: From the moment Const. James Forcillo first laid eyes on Sammy Yatim to the moment he pulled the trigger on his police-issue Glock.
Seven seconds: The time that elapsed between the first volley of three shots – including the lethal bullet – and the second volley of six shots, five of which struck the dying teenager.
The initial gunfire was justifiable, a jury concluded, acquitting the officer of second degree murder. The subsequent gunfire was not justifiable and Forcillo was convicted of attempted murder.
Less than a minute in all, that fateful July night in 2013, and the wreckage it left behind.
One life lost, needlessly, if not for the foolishness of an 18-year-old high on Ecstasy, brandishing a knife, the blade he’d already wielded at a terrified passenger before everyone scrambled off the stopped downtown streetcar.
One life hanging in the balance, the cop who says he was only doing his job, presented with a non-compliant armed suspect posing an imminent threat.
Except there was no threat, imminent or otherwise at the point of the second volley, not with Yatim lying mortally wounded near the stairwell of the car, his spine fractured, paralyzed from the waist down, his heart catastrophically damaged from another bullet to the chest.
One minute that neither Yatim nor Forcillo can have back. (more...)
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