SIU charges officer four years after alleged assault

Source: Toronto SunBy ROB LAMBERTI, Toronto Sun (yes Rob Lamberti did really write this)

Last Updated: February 25, 2010 8:37pm

Shayne Fisher is getting his day in court.

The crane operator was acquitted of firearms charges in 2008 after he was arrested by Toronto Police drug squad officers during a 2006 raid.

Fisher suffered a perforated eardrum, a broken rib and bruising during the arrest, and Thursday the Special Investigations Unit charged Det.-Const. Gerrard Arulanandam with assault causing bodily harm.

This case is unique because the SIU didn’t know about the injuries until Superior Court Justice Brian Trafford ruled Fisher and his co-accused, Valter Almeida, then 23, were physically abused by police during the arrest.

The two were acquitted of all charges by Trafford, who ruled in his judgment that “clearly, the defendants were physically abused by the (Toronto Police Service) when they were arrested on June 7, 2006 ... Other legal rights, such as the right of Mr. Fisher to retain and instruct counsel, were also infringed.”

“I’m kind of happy, as weird as that sounds,” Fisher, 26, said Thursday. “It’s not a bad feeling.

“It’s not good to be happy that anybody gets charged, but justice takes a while here, I guess.”

Fisher was in the apartment of an acquaintance in the same Lawrence Ave. W. apartment building he lives in when police rushed in executing a warrant.

Steve Ruiz pleaded guilty to weapons and drugs charges.

The two years between being charged and being freed was “s----y. It’s not a good feeling,” Fisher said.

“It’s like I had two years of my life taken away.”

Fisher believed that when the cops rushed into the apartment he’d be considered a found-in and later be released.

“Unfortunately, no, it’s not like that,” he said.

Fisher said he wants “justice to take it’s course. Whatever happens, happens.”

His lawyer, Allan Lobel, said Fisher had no criminal record, suffered serious injuries in the raid and his eyes were swollen shut.

“In this case, (Fisher) was absolutely clearly innocent,” Lobel said. It wasn’t a case that the Crown lost because of a technicality, he said.

“The crime here, if you may, is that cops did this and then the buddy system kicked in. That’s the story here.”

Police said three guns were tossed from the third-storey balcony during the drug raid and almost hit an officer watching from below.

“They nearly hit me in the head,” Sgt. Don MacCallum told the Toronto Sun in 2006. “They were absolutely guns. They were cocked and the safety was off.”

MacCallum, now retired, is before the courts in Peel charged with sex-related offences that allegedly occurred between 1996 and 2003 involving girls aged five to 15. He wasn’t called as a witness in Fisher’s trial.

Toronto Police union president Mike McCormack said the association stands behind the officer and is instead concerned about “the conduct of the SIU.”

“This is four years after the event, the officer was doing his job,” he said.

The association will be looking at SIU to see if it’s fulfilling its stated mandate of investigating “Ontario’s police services by assuring the public that police actions resulting in serious injury or death are subjected to rigorous, independent investigations.”

McCormack is concerned if “they’re charging our officers for political allegiance or any other thing than based on factual evidence.

“All I can say, looking at the way the SIU has been dealing with our members, there are some concerns and we’re going to wait until this goes to court and the evidence comes out,” McCormack said. “We’ll be monitoring this very closely.

“We already looking at a number of cases and this will be another case that we’re going to be looking at.”