DiManno: New tape backs up protester’s beating allegation

By Rosie DiManno

When he is finally allowed up off the ground after being stomped and pummeled by cops, Adam Nobody appears to have suffered no significant facial injuries — at least none that show.

There isn’t any blood, nary evidence of wounds, and the nose — which Nobody suspects was snapped during that pile-on melee — is exactly where it’s supposed to be.

The outward evidence is fairly clear on a piece of footage given to the Star this week.

Those images — a handcuffed Nobody being led out of camera range by uniformed officers, in the process of being arrested last June 26, not a drop of blood on him — support the 27-year-old’s formal complaint that he was immediately afterwards subjected to another vicious beating by a couple of plainclothes detectives behind two parked police vans.

After this second purported assault, Nobody’s face was left bloodied, he says, his cheekbone shattered.

Within a week, he would undergo surgery to repair the damage.

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DiManno: How long can Blair stay shackled?

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair addresses the media at a press conference held at the Empress hotel in Victoria, BC.

Anybody got the keys to Police Chief Bill Blair’s handcuffs?

Because Toronto’s top cop — indisputably the most powerful municipal law enforcement official in Canada — has got a bad case of the shackles.

Five officers identified by late Wednesday afternoon as cop-on-civilian combatants during the G20 Summit protests and there’s apparently precious little Blair can do about it.

Can’t fire ’em. Can’t suspend ’em without pay, pending a disciplinary hearing. Can’t compel them — if designated by the Special Investigations Unit as subject officers, which hasn’t happened yet with this quintet — to come forth for interviewing by the independent agency.

So what’s a chief for?

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Toronto police chief will not resign, says officers identified in G20 beating case

JUSTINE HUNTER, ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY AND MARCUS GEE

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair says the police have identified five of the officers who are persons of interest in an alleged assault of a G20 protester.

Chief Blair held a news conference in Victoria Wednesday amid growing calls for an inquiry into police conduct into the G20, and said he has no plans to resign.

“No I am not [resigning],” he said. “I am doing my job.”

Chief Blair said his department has identified and is disciplining 91 officers for failing to display their name tags. As well, five officers accused of misconduct have been identified from photographs published in the media. He said he did not personally identify the officers.

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Ontario never should have enacted G20 summit security law, Ombudsman’s report says

Anna Mehler Paperny

In their haste to bump up G20 security, Ontario authorities kept silent on a convoluted amendment to 71-year-old legislation that was “illegal” and “likely unconstitutional,” abrogating the Charter rights of thousands of people in the process, says Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin.

Toronto police Chief Bill Blair, who requested the regulation, misrepresented it after officers were trained according to an incorrect interpretation of the law, Mr. Marin said. The chief then refused to speak with or provide information to the Ombudsman investigating its execution.

Police spokesman Mark Pugash argues Mr. Marin was overstepping his jurisdiction by making the request. And Chief Blair, for his part, says he did everything in his power to ensure his officers applied the law correctly.

"I certainly made no effort to deceive anyone or to withhold information," he told CTV Tuesday.

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DiManno: G20 Youtube video a sorry affair indeed

Sorry chief — truly I am — but sorry just isn’t good enough.

A man of integrity, which Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair is, would at least offer to resign.

And a police services board that has the authority to hire and fire this city’s top cop — no one else can do that — should think seriously about terminating Blair’s renewed contract.

Some professionals, because of the power they wield and all the moral heft they carry in our society, don’t have the luxury of being so profoundly wrong or misguided.

It is not simply about taking the blame for the misdeeds of others — officers who answer ultimately to their chief through the chain of command — because the buck stops in that brass-and-braid invested office.

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90 officers facing disciplinary action for hiding their identity at G20

Marianne Takacs and Kate Allen Staff Reporters

About 90 Toronto police officers are facing disciplinary action for removing the name badges from their uniforms during the G20 summit, Chief Bill Blair said Wednesday.

Blair was appearing in Ottawa before the House of Commons public safety committee to answer questions about summit security. He discussed the disciplinary action in response to MPs’ queries about accusations that a large group of officers deliberately tried to hide their identities from G20 protesters.

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