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rfmcdonaldI decided to link to Michele Mandel's Toronto Sun article announcing that the police officer has been charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of Sammy Yatim because of the nature of the tabloid. Video of police shootings can make even right-wing tabloids skeptical of the police.
Torontoist has coverage if you'd prefer alternate sources.
The analogies to the Robert Dziekański Taser incident seven years ago in Vancouver, where a fatal tasering was only revealed thanks to a bystander's video, are obvious.
At Old City Hall comes the only decision that could satisfy this city.
Following a preliminary hearing, a judge has committed Const. James Forcillo to stand trial for second-degree murder in the troubling shooting of teen Sammy Yatim last July on an empty Dundas St. streetcar.
The flurry of bullets that struck the knife-wielding 18-year-old still echo to this day.
Bang after bang after bang after bang after bang after bang after bang after bang after bang. Nine shots fired at a skinny kid standing at the streetcar doors with a puny blade that glinted in the headlights of a cavalry of police cars that had arrived on the scene.
His death didn’t make sense. Not then, and not a year later. But our myriad of questions stand a better chance of being answered now with a trial slated to go ahead sometime in 2015.
The officer’s prelim was originally scheduled to continue until Friday, but Justice Richard LeDressay — an Oakville-area judge purposely brought in from outside Toronto to ensure there was no question of bias — had obviously heard enough and ruled Tuesday that there is enough evidence to send Forcillo to trial.
What that evidence is remains sealed under a publication ban. And yet we have seen so much of it already thanks to the horrifying citizen cellphone videos that captured the shooting in the early hours of last July 27.
The analogies to the Robert Dziekański Taser incident seven years ago in Vancouver, where a fatal tasering was only revealed thanks to a bystander's video, are obvious.
