BASICSnews.ca – 16 April 2011 – BASICS Live Report
We need a better way to handle conflicts in our city. At 12:50pm today three Police officers charged into a subway train to remove a man.
The police quickly took the man to the ground. They then proceeded to knee, kick and punch the man telling him not to resist arrest. As passengers began to see the police beat the man, they started yelling at the police. “He’s not resisting arrest!” yelled one woman on the train. “Stop beating him!” was the call of several other passengers.
Three police officers beating a man at Bathurst subway station
The TTC manager worked along the side of the police by preventing people on the train from trying to defend the man against the police brutality. When he saw the passengers becoming more agitated, he yelled at the conductor to get the train moving. As the train left the station, the police were left alone with the man.
The TTC called the police after the man had become involved in an altercation. One witness told BASICS that it was evident that the man “was not well”.
However, shortly after the incident, the man was calm and was just listening to music.
After a TTC employee told him that they had called the police and that he should leave. He proceeded to do just that, but then he came back.
At the time the police had arrived, the man was posing no danger to other passengers.
“Someone needed to deal with his situation. It wasn’t the police’s. They would have been the last people I would have asked to intervene” a witness told BASICS. Incidents like the one today should make us think twice about calling the police to “maintain the peace”.
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