On Thursday, the Toronto Police Service (TPS) announced four experienced police officers have been charged with a total of 17 obstruction of justice and perjury charges in relation to the planting of heroin on a suspect. Charged are Const. Jeffrey Trout, 41, Det.-Const. Benjamin Elliott, 32, Const. Michael Taylor, 34, and Det.-Const. Fraser Douglas, 37. The length of time these officers have been with the TPS ranges from nine to 17 years.
All four officers were taken into custody early Thursday morning and released. They are due to appear in court in March. The four have been suspended and, in accordance with Ontario law, suspended with pay.
On Jan. 15, 2014, Nguyen Son Tran was driving when he was pulled over for supposedly running a red light. The officers said there was loose heroin on the centre console of Tran’s car that gave them reasonable and probable grounds to search the rest of the vehicle. The subsequent search turned up 11 grams of the drug and Tran was arrested and charged with possession of heroin for the purpose of trafficking.
Tran’s trial began on June 19, 2015 before Justice Edward Morgan sitting without a jury. On Sept. 3, Morgan rendered his decision and stayed the drug charge.
Morgan found there were too many lies, inconsistencies and unexplained elements in the testimony of the officers. The justice did not believe there was white powder on the centre console of Tran’s vehicle, finding he (Tran) would have wiped it away after it became obvious he was being stopped. As a result, Morgan found any further search of the vehicle was illegal.
The professional standards unit of the TPS that investigated the four officers is now, together with the Crown Attorney’s office, investigating other cases where these officers testified at trial. There are bound to be appeals launched by others who have been convicted on the testimony of one of these officers.
On Wednesday, the (TPS) announced an officer is facing non-criminal Police Services Act charges in relation to an incident last September. Police were pursuing a vehicle when they managed to box the car in in the city’s Distillery District, a busy area of Toronto. While the car was stopped, it is alleged one officer fired multiple shots (at least 14) at the vehicle’s tires and engine block. The driver was pulled from his car, arrested and charged with several offences including dangerous driving.
Police are not releasing what specific charges this officer faces but it assumed he is being disciplined for discharging his firearm in a manner that could have caused injury or death to any of the people who were in the area including other officers.
While the TPS did not release the officer’s name, he was identified by the Toronto Police Association as Const. Tash Baiati, a former Canadian soldier.
Penalties upon conviction of Police Service Act offences can range from a reprimand to dismissal.
On Monday, during the sixth day of deliberations, a Toronto jury came back with its verdict in the trial of Const. James Forcillo. The officer was found not guilty of second-degree murder but guilty of attempted murder in the shooting of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim in the summer of 2013.
Yatim was riding on a Toronto streetcar when he pulled out a switch-blade knife and waived it around. He also exposed himself to two women passengers. When Forcillo and his partner arrived, Yatim was the only one still on the streetcar. After refusing commands to drop the knife, Forcillo fired nine shots, eight of which hit the 18-year-old.
As Digital Journal reported, a year after the incident, prosecutors added the charge of attempted murder to the second-degree murder Forcillo had already been charged with. The nine shots came in two volleys; three shots, a pause, and then six more shots. Only one of the shots missed the teen. Based upon forensic evidence, it was the Crown’s theory Yatim could not have survived the first volley of shots and those initial shots formed the basis of the second-degree murder charge.
According to the evidence, none of the shots in the second volley could have caused the death of Yatim but as he was still alive at that time although dying from the first shots, these shots constituted the offence of attempted murder.
The jury had at least a reasonable doubt that Forcillo was not justified in firing the first three shots and found him not guilty of murder. However they were satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt the second round of shots were not justified and convicted the officer of attempting to murder the dying man.
Forcillo is due back in court in March for sentencing and his lawyer announced there will be an appeal as well as an application to stay the charge that he has been found guilty of but not yet convicted.
Police Chief Mark Saunders held a press conference Thursday to announce the charges against the four officers. He said, “It certainly has been an anomaly week when it comes to our service. We will do our best to get the public trust back that we have lost in certain ways.”
There can be no doubt it was an unusual week for Toronto and its police service.
