Recent
Watch also...
G20 picture generates questions
By Joe Warmington
The Special Investigation’s Unit doesn’t seem to be able to get Toronto Police officers to help identify who amongst them beat G20 victim Dorian Barton.
Perhaps you can assist?
A picture taken by witness Andrew Wallace provides a pretty clear image. And you can actually see a blurred look of the officer’s badge number. Policing insiders tell me with this picture, a positive identity should be a slam dunk.
“This is the same enhanced picture the SIU had,” said Barton’s outraged father, Ted Burley. “It’s amazing to me that no one knows who it is when, as you can see, it’s a pretty clear frame. You would think somebody on the force would be concerned enough about justice to want to help do the right thing.”
Or maybe not.
“Director of the Special Investigations Unit Ian Scott concluded that there are there are no reasonable grounds to cause charges to be laid against any Toronto Police Service (TPS) officers in connection with the arrest of 29-year-old Dorian Barton during the G20 demonstrations in Toronto in June 2010,” said a news release on Monday.
The reason?
None of the 11 “witness officers” could identify the “subject officer” despite the fact most are wearing the same Public Safety Unit patches. You’d think they’d know who they all are!
It’s called ‘Blue Wall” justice. In fact the Blue Wall thought it already had this nuisance put away last summer until Wallace came forward with fresh pictures.
“Its unbelievable to me that an honest police force can’t identify one of their own from a clear photograph,” said Barton’s lawyer Clayton Ruby
In re-opening the case, the SIU determined “Mr. Barton was first struck with a riot shield causing him to fall down and then struck a number of times with a baton or batons (there may have been more than one officer involved).”
The SIU also said “the photographs were shown to 11 witness officers in an attempt to identify any officers involved in striking Mr. Barton. While a number of officers in the vicinity were identified, none of the witness officers could identify the perpetrator or perpetrators of the strikes against Mr. Barton.”
Maybe these coppers are not the cream of the crop? Or have bad eyesight? Somehow none of the 7,000 TPS members seem to recognize his face.
“Based upon this lack of positive identification,” wrote director Scott, “I am not in a position to form reasonable grounds that an identifiable police officer used excessive force against the complainant leading to his serious injury.”
So, with the facial recognition software, the hundreds of cameras installed for the G20, with interviews with 11 professionally trained officers, they can’t determine who did this?
Yet, Toronto Police’s memory and recognition process worked better in helping them last week go down to Montreal and bring back a guy wanted for breaking a window.
Perhaps Chief Bill Blair will now ask those same officers to delve into this next because Barton was not a protester but a guy who followed then-mayor David Miller’s request to go to the safe protesting area at Queen’s Park.
It wasn’t safe for Dorian.
“I wasn’t even there to protest,” he said. “I live in the area and was just checking it out. I was taking some pictures of the horses when I was blind sided.”
His purple bruises lasted all summer, his shoulder was fractured and he still does not have full use of it. The internal damage and suffering is hard to measure as he pursues legal action.
His father just wishes police would do the right thing and apologize to his son, whose charges of obstructing police and unlawful demonstrating were thrown out by the court. With or without criminal charges, the reality is Dorian was nothing more than a victim of an assault right in front of hundreds of police officers.
“You’d think one of these officers would be law abiding enough to recognize the one who inflicted this damage to my son,” said Ted.
Many are and may do exactly that. Some have told me they are offended at being ordered from above to condone unlawful and uncivilized incarcerations, false arrests, rubber bullet shootings, forced kettlings, the displaying of false evidence and illegal searches while letting the real criminals go on a rampage untouched.
Perhaps, one of them will call Crime Stoppers anonymously. Or maybe it will just be chalked up as another win for Blue Wall.
Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2011/05/16/g20-picture-generates-questions