In early May, Reece Maxwell-Crawford jumped out of his mother’s car and climbed onto the railing of the Scarlett Road bridge. Through a blur of tears, the distraught 19-year-old stared at the rocks and treetops below and debated whether he should jump.“I just wanted to give up, I really did,” he says. “I felt like a burden to everybody. I just wanted everything to stop.”He was eventually coaxed down by police and taken to a hospital, where he stayed for four days and received treatment for major depressive disorder. Now 20, Maxwell-Crawford is no longer in crisis but the soft-spoken Black man remains haunted by the painful experience that brought him to the edge of that bridge.Maxwell-Crawford is speaking publicly for the first time about that precipitating incident, which occurred on Feb. 18 and was captured by cellphone videos that have been watched tens of thousands of times. In the videos, Maxwell-Crawford can be seen lying facedown on a streetcar platform near Bathurst St., where he is being forcefully pinned down by three TTC officers. As a concerned crowd gathers, Maxwell-Crawford can be heard sobbing and screaming repeatedly that he “didn’t do anything.” “You’re hurting me. I’m in pain,” he shrieks.After Toronto police officers arrived and handcuffed Maxwell-Crawford, he was released without charges. He says the scuffle left him with a concussion, dislocated shoulder and back injuries, which he continues to treat with painkillers and physiotherapy.But the deepest wounds have been psychological, his family says. When Maxwell-Crawford got on the streetcar that day he was an independent and athletic young man with a girlfriend, downtown apartment, two part-time jobs and plans to pursue a career in law.Today, he has lost his girlfriend, apartment and both jobs, as well as his capacity to continue his paralegal studies at Humber College. Maxwell-Crawford says he struggles with depression, ...
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