Since the video was posted last July, many simply wonder what the man must have done to deserve such an arrest.
The man — black, with dreadlocks tied back, and dressed for the court in white shorts and T-shirt — is seen corralling the ball after a missed shot when four officers surround him. After some discussion that can’t be heard in the soundless video, they take him down.
Clearly, the man does not want to be touched. While three officers struggle to handcuff him, a fourth delivers six baton blows and three elbow jabs to the man’s body. Another officer joins in, and it takes more than three minutes to cuff him.
In the end, a total of seven officers walk him away.
Other players on the court — one a boy who is at the man’s side before the arrest — are visibly troubled by what they see and a couple document it on cellphone cameras, one of which an officer appears to seize and examine after a chest-to-chest confrontation.
“All I see is a black man playing bball then being over powered by a bunch a cops,” reads one comment on the YouTube video. “Why was he being arrested?”
The man himself will now tell you why he thinks he was arrested.
James Bishop, charged on Jan. 11, 2011 with trespassing at the Scarborough YMCA and assaulting two police officers during the arrest, is now suing police and the YMCA, alleging he was the one assaulted while playing basketball with his son, then 11, and that a “civil dispute” over the status of his YMCA membership never should have resulted in an arrest.
In a statement of claim filed in late June, Bishop, 43, and his family are seeking $2.3 million in damages and name eight officers and an unnamed ninth as defendants, as well as the YMCA and Toronto Police Services Board.
His arrest, states the suit, was a “brutal display of force,” and it was “obvious that the intent was to inflict maximum pain . . . He begged the officers to stop at one point because he could not breathe.”
Medical records show he suffered a minor heart attack that appears to have occurred around the time of the arrest.
The suit also alleges police seized onlookers’ mobile phones and erased images of the arrest, which “strongly suggest that the police knew that their conduct was illegal.”
Police charged Bishop with two counts of assault resist arrest, alleging he tried to bite one of the arresting officers and kicked out at another. While an attempt to bite can’t be seen on the video, Bishop’s legs do flail about at points.
The charges were later withdrawn in lieu of a peace bond.
The allegations contained in Bishop’s statement of claim have not been proven in court, and police and the YMCA have yet to file a defence. Since the case is now before the courts, the YMCA of Greater Toronto cannot comment, a spokesperson said. A police spokesperson said the service will file a statement of defence but otherwise had no comment.
But a fair amount of evidence in the case has been disclosed through court to Bishop in the criminal case against him and shared with the Star, including officer notes, which make no mention of onlookers’ cameras being seized or any erased images.
The one video of the arrest comes from a YMCA security camera perched above the basketball court. It was seized by police following the arrest and is the version Bishop provided the Star. It is a copy of the video posted to YouTube.
The police response for a trespassing call was overblown and has left an entire family “traumatized,” says Osborne Barnwell, Bishop’s lawyer,
“They are struggling with the question as to whether they have a place in this society,” he said in an email. “My hope is that the Bishop family’s confidence will be restored in our policing and justice system.”
YMCA staff can be seen attempting to block one onlooker from documenting the arrest.
While difficult to make out on the video, Const. Glen Espie, the officer who delivered the baton and elbow strikes, used pepper spray on Bishop as well.
Espie did not respond to an email from the Star, but according to his notes, he warned Bishop and then delivered a ¼-second burst of pepper spray, to no effect. He then delivered four more blows to Bishop’s right shoulder, using his elbow. Espie’s notes on his use of force reflect what can be seen in the video.
Police are allowed to use force in a resisted arrest and must document what methods are used.
Two use-of-force experts contacted by the Star were reluctant to comment on the video without reviewing all of the related paperwork and call log.
After being pepper-sprayed, the lawsuit states, Bishop “collapsed” and was handcuffed.
At the 5:16 mark in the shortened version of the video that is posted on thestar.com, Bishop is seen cuffed and seated on the floor. One officer points to one of the onlookers who used his mobile phone, approaches him and appears to chest-bump him twice.
Three more officers surround the onlooker and the first officer takes a mobile phone from the man and appears to examine something on the screen. He then walks away and shows it to another officer and then hands the phone back to the onlooker.
At the 6:10 mark, Bishop is raised to his feet by a sergeant and appears unsteady. He is then escorted off the court and out of camera view by a total of seven officers. His son follows and, according the lawsuit, was off camera when he was poked in the side by a police baton “with intent to hurt.”
At 43 Division station, Bishop started having chest pain and asked repeatedly to be taken to hospital. A desk sergeant told him “he was fine,” the suit alleges. After a shift change, the suit says, a black officer took over and following another request by Bishop, an ambulance was called.
According to medical records shared with the Star, Bishop had suffered a mild heart attack. He spent two days in hospital under police guard.
Months later, on June 8, Bishop was in court on the charges and encountered the arresting officers in the hallway. They stared at him, stood in a “bravado manner,” and had their hands “positioned next to their guns,” states his claim.
“There are lots of guns on the streets, I am not scared of you,” Bishop told them, according to his claim.
Later, as he was entering a courtroom with his wife, he was stopped, handcuffed and placed under arrest for “intimidation of the justice system,” threatening bodily harm and failing to comply with bail conditions.
While in a courthouse holding cell, he again had chest pains and was treated in hospital for “yet another mild heart attack” after which he spent two weeks in jail awaiting bail — a detention, he alleges in his suit, “orchestrated” by police. There were two more hospital visits for chest pain while in custody.
On Oct. 12, in exchange for agree to a $500 peace bond and a promise not to have any contact with certain YMCA staff and police officers and stay away from the YMCA for a year, all of the charges from the YMCA incident and the courthouse arrest were withdrawn.
Bishop had been informed by the YMCA in December 2010 that his membership had been suspended because of a dispute over a bet on a game of basketball earlier that month. Bishop disagreed with the decision to suspend without being heard out.
Police were called by the YMCA and warned Bishop not to go back, according to police records. Staff there felt intimidated by Bishop, who is a fit six feet tall and works as a personal trainer.
By his own admission, Bishop was angry, but not violent, he says.
“When this all happened, I was belligerent,” he said in an interview in his lawyer’s office. “I was saying and doing things to people. I wasn’t my normal self.”
Bishop has had numerous run-ins with police and has a criminal record he isn’t proud of, including a cocaine-trafficking conviction from 1995 that landed him an 18-month sentence.
On police databases, he is flagged as an EDP — an emotionally disturbed person. There are also police warnings that he is a “dangerous person,” “very anti-police” and should be approached by at least two officers.
Bishop said he is not anti-police and has police friends and that there have been occasions where police have dealt with him respectfully. Other times, there have been problems— so many times, he says, that he has lost count.
“I’m not going to tell you a lie, with my mouth, if an officer pulls me over I’m going to ask, ‘Why are you pulling me over?’ And they say, ‘Because I can.’ Well if you give me attitude, I’m going to give you attitude.”
He spoke of his efforts to control his mouth but says what happened to him was wrong and that, aside from seeking financial compensation, he is speaking out to bring attention to how he was treated.
“I’d like police to be retrained to deal with people like myself, that are boisterous,” said Bishop. “Learn to calm people down and talk to them. Don’t start by beating them.”
In addition to physical injuries, which included bruising to his arm, legs and body, “psychologically and socially, he is a misfit in his family circle” and among friends, states his claim. “His personality has significantly shifted to being anti-social and intensely belligerent,” it reads.
Bishop’s wife, Sophia Sandiford, and their three children are also part of the lawsuit. The suit states that the son who was there during his father’s basketball court arrest now believes police are “out to get his family.”
Sandiford’s own health has deteriorated due to “deep depression” and panic, and she has stopped working. For a while, Bishop didn’t care if he lived or died and “felt that the police had already killed him in the gym anyway,” states the suit. She has seen her husband break out crying and “all of the intimacy has left” their 18-year relationship.
As for the video, Bishop was given a copy of the YMCA security video as part of disclosure. He had a friend upload the video, with a title of “Toronto Police Thugs Gang Up & Beat Guy Senseless,” to YouTube.
Bishop and his wife said they thought about a lawsuit last year and talked to lawyers, but there was no interest. Sandiford also had fears of repercussions for the family and her husband.
“When I think about going up against the Toronto police, to me that is a little bit daunting,” said Sandiford. “It’s not to say I support his decision (to sue and go public), but I support him, I’ll be there to do whatever I can and just deal with it.”
Source: the star
Author: Jim Rankin
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