You’re a Black teenage male just crossing the road. You haven’t done anything wrong but a belligerent cop is suddenly in your wheelhouse.And before the day is over, you will be charged with assaulting police, threatening death and assault with intent to resist arrest.All of those charges will subsequently be withdrawn.Nearly six years go by.On the morning of Aug. 10, 2017, you — one of the “Neptune Four” as the quartet of Black youths arrested in the incident that night have become known — finally get to tell your story in front of a police disciplinary tribunal.Because the officer who allegedly arrested you unlawfully, who allegedly pointed a gun in your stunned face, who allegedly dropped you with a punch in the head, who allegedly smeared blood from a cut finger across the back of your vest — a cut you did not inflict — has himself been charged under the Police Act with unlawful arrest and two counts of disorderly conduct.That’s Const. Adam Lourenco, who has pleaded not guilty.Read more:Teen testifies he stood up for himself, then got punched by a copAnother officer, who purportedly stood by as all of this was going on, deliberately turning his back on the scene and ignoring pleas for help, is Const. Scharnil Pais. He also has pleaded not guilty on one count of unlawful arrest.Oddly, on Day 2 of this hearing, the prosecutor, Insp. Dominic Sinopoli, does not ask the witness how Lourenco cut himself on his utility belt.Perhaps that will come later. Lord knows this entire matter has moved like molasses, with preliminary excursions to Ontario’s Office of the Independent Police Review Director, and pre-hearing arguments (rejected) for the Ontario Human Rights Commission to get a place at the table on the grounds that an exploration of racial profiling was intrinsic to the hearing, and even a motion (brought by Lourenco) that the adjudicator, the judge in other words, be removed over the “ ...
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