Amateur video shows police beating Toronto Somali

By JEFF GRAY
From Friday's Globe and Mail


Police Chief Julian Fantino has launched an internal police investigation after an amateur videotape surfaced of an officer punching a man in the face in an Etobicoke parking lot.

“We're going to get to the bottom of it. ... I appreciate the fact that we've been given an opportunity to delve into it. And we're doing that, and there will be answers. And when those are available, we'll make those known,” he told reporters yesterday.

It was a day of controversy for the chief, who also faced calls from the Law Union of Ontario for an investigation of allegations that he supported the provincial Tories and the mayoral candidacy of John Tory, suggestions Chief Fantino denied.

“I was endorsing no candidate. I've never endorsed a candidate,” he said after a Police Services Board meeting.

The case of the videotaped punch came up awkwardly just a day after Chief Fantino denounced suggestions from the Ontario Human Rights Commission that police cruisers be outfitted with video cameras to monitor police conduct and to fight racial profiling.

Early on Aug. 4, the Monday morning of Caribana weekend, officers arrived at a doughnut shop parking lot near Highway 27 and Albion Road to break up a fight in which the combatants were using a knife and a motorcycle helmet as weapons.

A videotape taken by witnesses appears to show Jama Jama, a 21-year-old landed immigrant from Somalia, trying to stop the fight before police arrive. Once officers from 23 Division show up, the tape, as broadcast on CITY-TV, appears to show a gloved officer gritting his teeth, grabbing Mr. Jama and punching him in the face, apparently unprovoked.

Mr. Jama says he then tried to escape, like everyone else in the parking lot that night who had gathered after a nearby party ended. “I didn't wait for the next punch; I ran,” he said yesterday in an interview.

After dashing across the road, he said, he decided to stop, put his hands up and surrender peacefully to police. But he was knocked to the ground and beaten again, he said, this time by four officers, in a frenzy of kicking and stomping that left him with a tooth missing and a bloodied face.

His lawyer, Andrew Vaughan, said relatives later found Mr. Jama's missing tooth near the scene.

Mr. Jama was examined in hospital before being taken to a police station and charged with assaulting a police officer and disturbing the peace. Police accounts of that night, Mr. Vaughan said, accuse Mr. Jama of pushing an officer and claim that his injuries were sustained in the fighting before police arrived. The videotape appears to show him unscathed before the police appeared, his lawyer said.

Mr. Jama, who came to Canada from the Somali capital, Mogadishu in 1995, could be deported if convicted, Mr. Vaughan said. He said his client has no criminal record.

Mr. Vaughan denied planning the public release of the tape, which he has had for months, to coincide with the debate over video cameras on police cruisers, saying he was waiting for police to disclose the evidence they had against his client. Going public was then delayed by the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and by the collapse of the Uptown Theatre, he said.

The accusations about Chief Fantino's political biases yesterday came from Howard Morton, a spokesman for the Law Union of Ontario, a lawyers group. He asked the Police Services Board to investigate whether the chief's actions breached the Police Services Act, which forbids political activism by police officers.

During the mayoral campaign, Chief Fantino made repeated pleas for more police officers, a central plank in Mr. Tory's campaign.

Yesterday, the Police Services Board refused to consider Mr. Morton's complaint, saying he should put it in writing. Mr. Morton responded that he did not want to file a written complaint because it would be dealt with in secret.

Also yesterday, the new head of the Toronto Police Association vowed to continue endorsing political candidates. Rick McIntosh told the Police Services Board that the association, like all labour groups, enjoys the constitutional right. to be politically active. His union, he said, will be involved in the federal election expected in the spring.

With a report from Gay Abbate.