‘Aggressive’ arrest of a Toronto cyclist caught on tape

David Shellnut, a lawyer who represents injured cyclists, says the police tackling the cyclist to the ground ‘was not a proportionate response.’

Video footage has surfaced that appears to show police officers tackling a person off their bicycle on the Martin Goodman Trail after they allegedly disobeyed a stop sign.

In the footage, which was shared on Instagram, an officer is seen sprinting across a bike lane on Queen’s Quay after a cyclist.

It was taken moments before a trio of uniformed police officers are seen surrounding a male on the ground who is heard groaning and shouting. The officers appear to be holding down and handcuffing that person. At one point the individual is heard asking “What did I do wrong?,” to which one of the officers there responds: “You didn’t stop.”

Toronto police tell CTV News Toronto the incident happened just before 6:30 p.m. on May 31.

They say officers were conducting cyclist stop sign enforcement near Queen’s Quay West and Little Norway Crescent when a male cyclist heading eastbound failed to stop for a clearly marked stop sign.

“Officers directed the cyclist to stop. The cyclist proceeded through the intersection at a high rate of speed and shouted a profanity at officers as he passed,” a media officer wrote in an email to CTV News Toronto.

“A second officer again directed the cyclist to stop; however, the cyclist refused and attempted to flee from police.”

The cyclist, identified by police as a man in his 20s, was subsequently arrested and issued three provincial offence notices.

CP24 has confirmed that they were ticketed for failure to stop, failure to identify, and disobey stop sign under the Highway Traffic Act.

Toronto police said the enforcement was undertaken in response to “numerous community complaints regarding cyclists failing to obey the posted stop sign at the intersection.”

‘Quite an aggressive situation’

Speaking with CP24 on Monday afternoon, lawyer David Shellnut, of The Biking Lawyer, says what occurred could amount to potential use of excessive force.

“This really stood out to me as being, you know, quite an aggressive situation, and so we posted it online, and a lot of people in the cycling community felt the same way,” said Shellnut.

“You just don’t see arrests for Highway Traffic Act infractions resulting in someone being tackled to the ground and jumped on by a bunch of officers. Certainly, if you did something wrong in your motor vehicle, they’re not allowed to use a pit maneuver against you because of obvious reasons, and this sort of screams out as being super questionable.”

Lawyer says action sets ‘bad precedent’

Shellnut, who is not representing the cyclist, said use of force by the police during an arrest must be reasonable, necessary, and proportionate.

He said that does not appear to be the case in this circumstance.

“If someone swears at you, tackling them off their bike and pinning them to the ground is not a proportionate response. This person could have fallen the wrong way and broken their shoulder, suffered a head injury, you know, that would have legal consequences as well,” he said.

“And so, you know, it appears that that didn’t happen here, but this is definitely not a reasonable use of force, and frankly, with the amount of sort of back and forth against cyclists on the streets of Toronto, and the rising temperatures, we think this is a really bad example for Toronto police to set.”

Shellnut added that “Heavy-handed enforcement” like what he says is depicted in the video “is definitely a bad precedent for our police to set, especially given the fact that criminal charges were not laid.

“You simply just can’t treat people breaking the Highway Traffic Act like this. So, it’s going to be a real mess. (It’s) really unfortunate that this happened,” Shellnut said.

With files from CP24’s Beatrice Vaisman