First of all it should be noted that in the Constitution Act 1982, under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all Canadians are granted the right to freedom of speech, and that right includes the right to freedom of the press. The constitution is the cornerstone upon which every law is based, and therefore no law, article of due process, corporate policy, or even contractual agreement which contradicts the constitution is enforceable. I have absolutely, the right to publish this story including the names of everyone involved. Any attempt to block, or to remove this story from this site will be seen as an attack on my constitutional rights and will be dealt with accordingly.
On July 26, 1996, I was riding my bicycle in “The Critical Mass” which still happens monthly to this day. It was early on in the life of the Critical mass, it had only been happening monthly in Toronto for about 3 years at that time, and the police still claimed to be unaware of it. These rides were happening at the time to gently protest the Toronto Police’s unwillingness to enforce the many laws which exist to ensure cyclist safety, and to make a statement to motorists, that we are here and are traffic too. The ride had a cheerful and positive energy and the riders were looking forward to having fun. As I am sure you know, the Critical Mass is always a pleasant and peaceful event.
In this particular ride there were approximately 300 cyclists. We had been riding for maybe 15 or 20 minutes, when we came to the intersection of Yonge and Bloor Sts. At that intersection many of the cyclists decided to “cork” the intersection, by riding around in circles in the middle of the intersection, thereby stopping traffic in all directions. I did not participate in this activity, as my brother is a police officer who, at that time, was with the Town of Collingwood Police, and as such, I did not feel it was appropriate for me to participate. Instead, I stopped my bike by the side of the road, on the north east corner of the intersection, in front of the Hudson’s Bay Tower, and waited until the “corking” was over and a new direction for the ride was established. The corking never lasts long, it is only done briefly to make a quick point and not to interfere with traffic very much.
Once the cyclists stopped corking and began moving again, the new direction was southbound down Yonge Street. As I had been waiting at the north side of the intersection, I obviously ended up at the back of the pack of cyclists as we collectively travelled southbound, using up both southbound lanes, ringing our bells in unison. We were not breaking any laws in doing so, in Canada we do have the right to peaceful protest, and the purpose of the event is merely to point out that we are traffic too. We remained in the southbound lanes only, but took them up entirely as there were so many of us. While we continued to travel south, there was suddenly a police car behind us making that quacking sound a police car can make that is not a siren, right behind me. It was moving fairly quickly, and we all had to get out of the way in order to not be hit. No lights were flashing that I noticed, but again the car was behind me. I tried to get out of the way, but there were other cyclists in my way so I was unable to move over in time when the police car HIT ME from behind. The sound of all the bicycle bells jingling had been sufficiently loud enough to drown out the sound of the police car. None of us heard it coming. About 4 seconds before the collision someone shouted that a police car was coming. We were scrambling to get out of the way, but due to the sheer number of us, I was unable, there were other bikes in my way.
I was almost knocked from my bike, but I managed to stay up, the car stopped and I put my feet down. Now the car was beside me, he had hit me with the front right corner of the car, due to the fact that I was actively attempting to get out of the way. I shouted obscenities in the open passenger window of the car, and then I attempted to resume the ride. But I could barely go, the back axle of my bike was broken, and the rear fender was folded up binding against the tire, and now resembled an accordion. (I also got whiplash from this)
The police officer driving the car, jumped out of the car, ran up to me and tackled me from my bike, pulling me onto the ground and ripping my shirt almost in half, Then he slammed me down against the hood of the car, handcuffed me and forcefully shoved me into the back seat of the cruiser amid shocks of horror from the crowd. A new film (ironically) “Supercop” was opening that day and there was a crowd of two hundred people, lined up on Yonge Street in front of the Uptown Theatre waiting to see it, who also all witnessed the incident. [Combined with the (aprox.) 300 cyclists, there were (aprox.) 500 people present at the time of the incident] few of the cyclists saw this happen though as they were all in front of me and were still blissfully jingling their bells, oblivious to the rogue police car, but word spread though the crowd like wildfire. There were however a few witnesses, one of whom I am still in contact with today. I am also still in contact with several people who were in the ride and remember the atmosphere of joy and how it was quickly disrupted.
Cyclists and movie goers alike were horrified by this event and a small riot broke out. Some people were surfing my mangled bike in the air over their heads while shouting for my release. Others were rocking the police car back and forth trying to overturn it, with me inside. (I remember being both pleased by this show of support and also afraid that if they did manage to roll the car over with me inside of it, I would not be able to brace myself as I was handcuffed and not wearing a seat belt.) Hundreds of people were booing and shouting at the police. Officer Benton, had single handedly, taken a peaceful event and turned it into a riot. Is that what Toronto Police are trained to do? I thought they were meant to keep the peace. Apparently, so he claimed afterward, he was angry because he had been stopped in the traffic, 3or 4 cars back from the intersection, caused by the cyclists who were corking the intersection. In other words, he had road rage. Once traffic was moving again, he chose to deal with his anger by using the cruiser as a battering ram against the crowd of cyclists. He is lucky nobody was killed. Ironically if the police had actually been willing to enforce the laws which are there for cyclist safety, (i.e. charging motorists who violate cyclist safety) none of this would have happened. Critical Mass began because of a need by cyclists to be seen, heard and respected.
After I was arrested, a second police car showed up from the south and stopped on an angle blocking off the entire street. Hundreds of people were shouting. One man, Joao Rolo, was in the crowd innocently standing beside his bike watching the turn of events. He was not involved in the rioting in any way. A police officer from the other car went up to him and him alone, and told him to get off the road. He moved over, but was unable to go far, because there were so many other people around, and the police car angle parked across the roadway blocking all traffic. He made it to the edge of the road, but the police officer followed him and again told him to get off the road. (He did not tell anyone else to get off the road, only Joao.) At this point Joao asked, “Why?”
The police officer grabbed him and threw him onto the back of the car I was in, (I witnessed this) handcuffed him, and put him into the second police car which was angle parked across the roadway, blocking the street. The charge against Joao was, blocking traffic. The only one blocking traffic was the police themselves. Northbound traffic had continued to flow freely until the second police car had come along and angle parked across the centre of the roadway thereby blocking all traffic in all directions. Southbound traffic had been flowing too, albeit, at the reduced speed of the crowd of cyclists, until officer Benton created the riot. The traffic obstruction was entirely the fault of the police.
I was brought to 52 Division, strip searched, and placed in a holding cell where I was kept in the cold, without food, water, or even the ability to pee from 7:00 pm till 11:30pm. My shirt was also half torn off of me. Why was it so cold in there? How come no-one brought me any supper?
I can remember needing to pee. I had been left alone in there for a long time. I could hear conversations on the other side of the door clearly. (One even commented about my shirt in a mocking way like I had intended to go out in a shirt which was nearly torn in half.) I began to knock on the door. My knocks were ignored. Eventually I began knocking louder, after a while someone on the other side of the door, said, “He is knocking, should we answer him?” and the other person said, “Just ignore him”. At this point I turned around backward and began to boot my heel against the door as hard as I could. After about 30 seconds of pounding and probably 20 minutes in total since I first began knocking, they finally yelled through door all angry with me for my rudeness. I said, “I have to pee! If you don’t open this door and take me to the washroom by the time I count to 10, I am going to pee under it!” Then I began counting… By the time I reached 6 the door was opened by a very angry officer who was intent on intimidating me. He tried to tell me that no one could hear me knocking. I said, “Don’t lie to me!!! I can hear every word you say out there!!! If I can hear you, then there is no reason that you can’t hear me!” He told me to wait a minute and someone would come to help me. Interestingly it was Officer Benton who came. Strangely, he had been the one playing “Good Cop” in the good cop/bad cop ritual all along and yet, he is the one who hit me.
While I was in the holding cell, occasionally a cop would come in and be nothing short of mean to me, talking down to me and intimidating me, like he was intentionally trying to make me angry,then a few minutes later another “good cop” usually officer Benton himself, would come in and be all nice to me.This happened continually for the first hour or 2 of my holding, and continued at a diminished rate during the remainder of my time there.
Eventually I got to go home, but I had been treated really badly, most of the cops were rude, unnecessarily forceful, and intimidating to me. The reason that they had left me in the holding cell for so long, I later found out, was because a couple hundred of the cyclists and moviegoers who had seen this had all followed the police car to 52 Division and were holding an impromptu demonstration outside the station for my release. In the Toronto Police’s ultimate arrogance, instead of realizing and accepting that the people were right and letting me go, the Police had decided to show a strong force of solidarity and not release me at all until the last of the people had left. This is probably why they were so hard on me throughout the entire time, They are afraid that if they actually admit wrongdoing in a situation like that then people might stop respecting them, when the exact opposite is true. They made many people disrespect all of them forevermore, that evening, including me;
It takes a lot of bravery to admit you are wrong and to make amends. To do so is highly honourable. I guess it can be concluded that few of the Toronto Police have that kind of bravery or honour. And then they wonder why they are not respected, and why their jobs are so much more difficult than necessary. Toronto Police treat people like shit as a general rule. (The G20 last summer was proof of this, it was not new behaviour,but rather a concentration of typical behaviour, which by its concentration became more obvious to the average person.)
After I was released, I had to face the serious embarrassment of being on the front page of the Toronto Star the next morning. My grandmother called me at 7:30 in the morning and asked, “Is this you?” Later that day, I got a phone call from someone who had witnessed the entire event, saying he wanted to meet with me. As a result of that meeting, the advocacy group, ARC (Advocates for Respect for Cyclists) was formed. They have become a powerful force in this city providing legal guidance and financial assistance to cyclists like me who are wrongfully arrested. And still exist to this day. (Something good came out of it)
The charges against me were; Failure to Stop (for what?), and Mischief Under. The cop claimed that I had “approached the police car while kicking it”. This was absolutely not true. No kicking had happened at all, from anyone. I have the original synopsis of events written by the police the day in question and it is so full of lies that it doesn’t even make sense. They are trying to say that when they first approached us, we had been a violent and angry mob of cyclists.It was Critical mass, critical mass is never violent or angry; it is a fun happy event to promote bicycle awareness which continues to happen monthly In Toronto, and most major cities, on every continent,in the entire world. They also say that we were continuing to circle Yonge Street, while riding southbound, blocking all north and southbound lanes. Say What? How is it that we were circling Yonge Street and riding southbound at the same time? That is not even possible. I think that speaks volumes, as being a falsehood. Even if it were possible, it was Critical Mass; Critical Mass is about being “traffic”, not about being a public nuisance. Even though they do “cork” intersections at times, that is a relatively benign inconvenience to traffic at best. I also did not condone or participate in the corking. If the entire ride was about being a nuisance, I would not have taken part in it.Furthermore, how is it even possible to kick a car while riding a bike, especially a car which approaches the cyclist from behind? The entire synopsis is nothing but fabrications like that, which are not even physically possible.
Critical Mass, (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Critical Mass is a bicycling event typically held on the last Friday of every month in over 300 cities around the world. While the ride was originally founded in 1992 in San Francisco with the idea of drawing attention to how unfriendly the city was to cyclists, the leaderless structure of Critical Mass makes it impossible to assign it any one specific goal. In fact, the purpose of Critical Mass is not formalized beyond the direct action of meeting at a set location and time and traveling as a group through city or town streets on bikes
Critical Mass rides have been perceived by some as protest activities. However, Critical Mass participants agree that these events should be viewed as “celebrations” and spontaneous gatherings, and not as protests or organized demonstrations.
Critical Mass differs from many other social movements in its rhizomal (rather than hierarchical) structure. Critical Mass is sometimes called an “organized coincidence”, with no leadership or membership. The routes of some rides are decided spontaneously by whomever is currently at the front of the ride, others are decided prior to the ride by a popular vote of suggested routes often drawn up on photocopied flyers. The term xerocracy was coined to describe a process by which the route for a Critical Mass can be decided: anyone who has an opinion makes their own map and distributes it to the cyclists participating in the Mass. Still other rides decide the route by consensus. The “disorganized” nature of the event allows it to largely escape clampdown by authorities who may view the rides as forms of parades or organized protest. Additionally, the movement is free from the structural costs associated with a centralized, hierarchical organization. In order for the event to function, the only requirement is a sufficient turn-out to create a “critical mass” of riders dense enough to occupy a piece of road to the exclusion of drivers of motorized vehicles. (Never the entire road though, but only the lanes which go in the direction of the rides travel)
Because Critical Mass takes place without an official route or sanction, participants in some cities have sometimes practiced a tactic known as “corking” in order to maintain the cohesion of the group. This tactic consists of a few riders blocking traffic from side roads so that the mass can freely proceed through red lights without interruption. Corking allows the mass to engage in a variety of activities, such as forming a cyclone, lifting their bikes in a tradition known as a “Bike Lift” (in Chicago this is referred to as a Chicago hold-up), or to perform a “die-in” where riders lie on the ground with their bikes to symbolize cyclist deaths and injuries caused by automobiles, very popular in Montreal. The ‘Corks’ sometimes take advantage of their time corking to distribute flyers.
Critics argue that the practice of corking roads in order to pass through red lights as a group is contrary to Critical Mass’ claim that “we are traffic”, since ordinary traffic (including bicycle traffic) does not usually have the right to go through intersections once the traffic signal has changed to red. Corking has sometimes led to hostility between motorists and riders, even erupting into violence and arrests of motorists and cyclists alike during Critical Mass rides.
Critical Mass rides have generated considerable controversy and public opposition. Some critics claim that Critical Mass is a deliberate attempt to obstruct traffic and disrupt normal city functions, asserting that individuals taking part refuse to obey traffic laws. Altercations with police and motorists have occurred. (Riders ascertain that the only reason those individuals are upset is because they and the Police, do not accept that the road is as much for bikes as it is for cars. As such this opposition merely encourages the rides to continue.)
Some bicycling advocacy groups have expressed concern that the “subversive” nature of Critical Mass and altercations with motorists could weaken public support for bicyclists. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition credits Critical Mass with spotlighting bicycle issues and aiding their efforts in advocating for cyclists.
Later I had to go for the set date for my trial. They kept giving me set date after set date after set date. They would set a set date simply to set another set date, etc. This game went on for many months. I had to keep taking time off of work for these phoney set dates only to be given yet another set date, (working as a Freelance Graphic Designer as I was at the time,this resulted in the loss of many “gigs”so one set date could result in the loss of a week or even a month of work.) One time I asked why I was only getting another set date and the judge said, “We never set dates on a Friday”; meanwhile, my new set date was also set for a Friday. Always was the threat that if I did not show up each time, I would be charged. What was that harassment about? That judge came very close to having a complaint filed against her with the Law Society of Upper Canada.
When my lawyer, Brenda Nichols, had her first meeting with the crown attorney, she was offered a plea bargain. I had filed a complaint against PC Benton. The crown attorney offered that if I dropped the complaint, the charges would be dropped against me. This confused my lawyer as the 2 things are not supposed to have anything to do with each other, but whatever, this was the offer on the table, and so under my lawyer’s insistence and against my better judgement, I dropped the complaint.
Once the complaint was dropped, the Crown, represented now by a different lawyer, said that the first lawyer had no right offering such a bargain, and refused to hold up their end of the deal, excusing it by saying the first lawyer for the crown, was young and inexperienced. I had been coerced into dropping the complaint against the police officer. Once a complaint has been dropped it cannot be re-instated. I would not be at all surprised to find that some arrangement had been met between the police officer and the first crown attorney.
During this time, I was working in a career as a freelance Graphic Designer. The stress and anger from this incident, and the lost work from all the bogus set dates, affected my career so badly that I lost all of my clients, and freelance agents. I had learned that there was the possibility of 4 years in prison because the alleged attack was against police property (the car) and attacks such as that against police property always get higher sentences. No-one had kicked the police car though, or anything else. This was all made up by some cops who were trying to cover up for a mistake (road rage) made by one of their own. I was completely innocent. I had learned that the cop, PC Alan Benton (3773), had a perfect record and as such had a high position and (allegedly) taught classes at the Police Academy in Aylmer. (I’m not sure if the teaching part is true, but I did hear that somewhere) He had a huge reputation to protect and was doing his utmost to protect it no matter how badly he hurt me. He knew he was in the wrong for hitting me with his car, and it might have affected his career badly. I can’t help but wonder which is worse:Hitting me and owning up to it, or what he actually did. I can tell you, if he had owned up to it at the time, I would have forgiven him. Everybody makes mistakes. It is his inability to own up to it that caused so much harm to me, and why you are reading this now, 17 years later.
PC Benton’s partner was PC Denise Williamson (4648), (no longer with the force) she kept herself uninvolved from the proceedings, but she didn’t try to bring any real justice either. She just let PC Benton do whatever he wanted and hardly said a word herself. This makes her guilty by way of her non-action.
I became depressed and filled with despair. I was naive I guess. I could not believe that something so horrible could happen to someone who was completely innocent. This is Canada after all. I was raised to believe that Canada is the best country in the world, and to know how lucky I was to have been born here; that the Police are there to do good by helping good people. Now I was horrified to find out the truth. I could not help but think about all the innocent people who were rotting in prisons around the world, and worse, right here in Canada. I felt unified with them and my heart went out to all of them. I felt betrayed by all I believed to be good in this world, I wanted to die; I could not live in a world where such terrible things happen to innocent people. What I didn’t realize was that I had developed a severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:
Post traumatic Stress Disorder, (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to one or more traumatic events that threatened or caused grave physical harm. It is a severe and ongoing emotional reaction to an extreme psychological trauma. This stressor may involve someone’s actual death, a threat to the patient’s or someone else’s life, serious physical injury, an unwanted sexual act, or a threat to physical or psychological integrity, overwhelming psychological defences.
In some cases it can also be from profound psychological and emotional trauma, apart from any actual physical harm. Often, however, incidents involving both things are found to be the cause.
PTSD is a condition distinct from traumatic stress, which has less intensity and duration, and combat stress reaction, which is transitory. PTSD has also been recognized in the past as railway spine, stress syndrome, shell shock, battle fatigue, traumatic war neurosis, or post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS).
Diagnostic symptoms include re-experience such as flashbacks and nightmares, avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, increased arousal such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, anger and hyper-vigilance. Per definition, the symptoms last more than six months and cause significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning (e.g. problems with work and relationships.)
I was so traumatized by the experience, disillusionment that an organization I had been raised to believe in as good and to always be respected, had been found to be so corrupt as to be willing to send an innocent person to jail simply to cover up for the poor judgement of one of its officers. That was too much for me to deal with, along with the simple injustice of it all; I was innocent of all of this that was happening to me. “How dare he press charges against me, I didn’t do anything wrong!” I now understand why so many people mistrust the police, and I totally see how such behaviour from the few make the jobs of the many so much more difficult. Since that time I do not trust any Toronto Police officer and consider them all to be corrupt. I feel safer that way, at least that way I am not placing trust in someone who could potentially not be trustworthy. And if they are trustworthy, well too bad, so sad, I have no way of telling them apart, best to simply assume them all to be corrupt. I’m sure all of their jobs would be way easier if more people trusted them, but it is easy to see why so many don’t.
All of this trauma had me so angry about injustice, that I became a very angry person, I would yell at anyone for the slightest injustice. Store clerks, waiters, people blocking escalators, and even my clients, bosses and freelance agents, no-one was exempt from my PTSD induced wrath. As you can see, this made it very difficult to keep employment, or even friends and relationships. This made me so financially poor that I lost my home and became homeless. I slept on sidewalks and in parks. My entire life fell to pieces as a result of the actions of Officer Benton. The anger however was the only thing that kept me going and kept me from killing myself. It gave me a purpose, and I was vigilant in it. It became a mask for the deeper despair I had from it all.
I remember the trial of Joao Rolo, where we had a dozen witnesses as to his innocence, but the police brought in a few witnesses, who strangely, no-one even remembered as having been there at the time. They all gave identical stories of Joao’s guilt and the Judge chose to believe the cops over the witnesses. This was a judge with a reputation for always siding with the police no matter what the circumstances. He was clearly biased in placing his sentence against Joao. He said that Joao was “guilty of preventing motorists from their ‘right’ of driving their cars”, (that is not a right, it is a privilege). After that joke of a trial, I was even angrier than before, because I was even more terrified than before. (Later, Joao Rolo, won a appeal with a different judge, however the entire experience cost him a lot too. He no longer resides in Canada, having returned to his native Portugal)
When my own trial came, my brother and father drove down from Collingwood, to show support for me. When we arrived outside the courtroom in Old City Hall, there were 6 uniformed Toronto Police officers waiting there to be witnesses. (Funny, there were only 2 cops in the car that hit me, and 2 more in a second car which showed up after my arrest, but 6 here as witnesses? That’s pretty funny.)
The other officers were, Det. James MacKrell (6909), P/C Paul VanSeters (2439), PC Phillip Chung (4096), and PC Adelio Alamag (89). None of these four were present at the time of the incident, or my arrest; however the last 2, Chung and Alamag, are credited with my arrest along with PC Benton, I assume that they are the officers who were in the second car which arrived after I was already arrested. D/C VanSeters, is credited as the investigator; I think this means that he played the role of “Bad Cop”, but I am not entirely sure. All I know is that none of these cops were there at the time and yet here they were
as witnesses. I have no idea who this Det. MacKrell was. Or what role he had in it, if any at all. This suggests to me that he was prepared to commit purgery.
About 5 minutes before the doors to the courtroom opened my lawyer Brenda Nichols came up to me with great news. She had informed the crown attorney that if they did not accept the original plea bargain, that we would be pressing criminal charges against the crown for “Improper Procedure” the crown had, under, this new light, decided to allow the plea bargain as originally offered, and the mischief charge was going to be dropped, under the provision that I agree to plead guilty to the lesser traffic offence of “Failure to Stop”. (Stop for what? there was nothing to stop for. We were in the middle of the block. This charge was completely made up too, but OK.) So I did just that, the judge however put the fine for the traffic offence up to $500.00 and then I had to pay another court fee on top of that. I was pretty angry about that. After all I had already lost, and all it had already cost me, to have to pay such a large fine and fee too.
I attempted to contact Officer Benton about a week after the court date. I wanted to talk to him about what he did to me and see if I could get him to apologize. Instead I barely got a few words out of my mouth and he told me that if I contacted him again, he would make my life very difficult. A threat! Considering how he was so able to twist what had happened and press false charges against me, I felt that the only thing I could trust about him was his ability to manipulate the law in his favour and make anything up in order to protect himself. Officer Benton is a deceitful intimidating liar and nothing can be put past him. He cannot be trusted. This was one of the reasons why I never bothered to do anything about this for so long; I was afraid of him. The other reason was the PTSD itself.I was so messed up that I was incapable of attempting to bring these cops to justice.
After that time, I spent 8 years, 1998 to 2006 and close to $20 000.00 in therapy. I was incapable of holding down any sort of a job at all during that time. My skills as a Graphic Designer became very obsolete and I have too much trauma around any of that to ever work in that field again. I am in need of complete re-training in a new field. Now that I am over the PTSD, and able to think straight about it without anger or despair, I am now not qualified for any sort of work. I am working right now as an Artist Figure Model, but that can’t be forever. It is only seasonal, so there is no money in it to re-educate myself in a new career. I have spent the last 5 years trying to move ahead with my life, but I have no skills to move ahead with.
In consideration of the legal expenses, the lost work, the fines, the lost home, the therapy, pain and suffering, I have decided that I need closure, and that the Toronto Police Services, and the officers involved, owe me. I would like to sue for 1 million dollars in damages. I believe that this is both reasonable and fair. My goal is not to hurt anyone, but rather to achieve closure and bring my life to a level of where it would be now if none of this had happened to me. Alan Benton, and the other officers who were willing to lie to cover for him, acted in a very unprofessional manner which has put the reputation of the Toronto Police Services in jeopardy.I lost my home,my career, and many thousands of dollars in lost work and therapy. There is also pain and suffering to consider.
So far as I have been able to find out, there is a statute of limitations of 5 years on this and I am way over that time. Considering that I was left psychologically unable to deal with the issue for all these years, and the threat I was under from Officer Benton, I don’t believe that this statute is fair. It should be overlooked in my case, in the same way that rape victims are able to sue private schools and the Catholic Church often as much as 50 years after the fact. I have come to serious harm as a result of this incident, and was prevented from getting the justice I deserve.
I have only recently come to understand that I had the right to sue, and to no longer be afraid of Officer Benton’s threats so I could speak out and tell my story. I am also aware that with proof of psychological conditions having been what prevented me from pursuing justice within the legal time frame that the statute can be overlooked.
I have attempted to contact the Toronto Police Services regarding this issue and request a meeting with Police Chief William Blair, but as of April 7th 2010, that request has been met with refusal from Sergeant Chris Blackman (4207) who insists that (even though I am innocent of all charges and have been forced into poverty by this issue), I am only allowed to proceed according to due process through the legal system, at my expense. How wonderfully convenient for them. It is unfair that I should be prevented from seeking justice due to financial hardship, especially when my financial hardship is the fault of the defendants, the Toronto Police and Mr. Benton. Furthermore; I really don’t feel that the police have the right to any requirements of process or procedure after what they did to me.
I have sent this to the Ombudsmen at all 3 levels of government and every political figure I can think of. I just want to have a comfortable life from now on, I lost my home because of this. My wish is not to hurt the Toronto Police in any way, but to finally be able to move my life ahead and stop living in the shadow of this incredible wrongdoing.
I would be willing to take this to court, but I require the Toronto Police Services or some other institution to pay for a lawyer of my choosing and all court expenses, as it is the fault of the Toronto Police that I am too poor to pay for it myself. It seems incredibly wrong that he only thing keeping me from garnering justice for this is the financial burden it created. This would go a long way to show some level of responsibility on the side of the Toronto Police, because the provision for me to incur such out of pocket expenses when I can’t afford to, speaks quite loudly of a conspiracy to keep me from garnering such restitution. On the one hand they ruined my life, and on the other they prevent me from doing anything about it.
I have attempted to contact lawyers about this, but they tell me that I only have a limit of 2 years to launch any action. That is clearly is unfair considering the magnitude of this and its serious effect on me. And especially because of the threat I was under from PC Benton. I was to terrified to do anything.
Today I am back on top of my life,and building a new career,but it is difficult as I am 50 years old now and am currently attending college through the second Careers program to finally build some marketable job skills after more thank one and a half decades of poverty. I need to be re-educated and I am doing the best I can to overcome this. It is bad that 17 years later I am still dealing with the aftershock of this event and even more of a shame that the poverty I have experienced as a result of this event is the one thing which keeps me from getting any justice. I can’t afford a lawyer and there is nothing more I can do in that area. Life is building now to something wonderful and it is happening because I worked hard to overcome the harm. And I did it all myself. I am still seeking justice in this event however and will soon post the latest judicial trauma in my quest for justice.
Sincerely,
Derek Birch
Alan Benton 3773, is now Sergeant in Forensic Identification Services
James MacKrell 6909, is now Staff Sergeant at 41 Division
Phillip Chung 4096, is now Detective with the Fraud Squad
Adelio Alamag 89, is still a Police Constable with 52 Division
Paul VanSeters 2439, is also still a Police Constable with 52 Division
Denise Williamson 4648, is no longer with the Toronto Police Services and I have been unable to locate her.
