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Evidence tossed Video evidence was tossed after a takedown near a Canadian Tire in Whitby, Ont., saw an unmarked police car slamming into two people riding a scooter. <\/p>\nAn unmarked Toronto police car hit two people on a scooter during a 2024 takedown in Whitby. Jon Woodward reports on the questions raised about the operation. <\/p>\n
An Ontario judge has tossed evidence after an extraordinary takedown near a Canadian Tire in Whitby, Ont., where a police officer was recorded on surveillance video suddenly slamming his unmarked police car into two people riding a scooter.<\/p>\n
Four sets of surveillance videos show the pair go flying. The officer then exits his car and chases one through the Garden Centre. The other man rushes to pick up a gun that he appears to have dropped, and then gets hit again by a second police car and crushed between them.<\/p>\n
It emerged in court that the takedown was started by a misunderstanding of a comment over the police radio \u2014 none of it went according to plan \u2014 and it ultimately resulted in an assault conviction of that Toronto officer.<\/p>\n
Evidence tossed Video evidence was tossed after a takedown near a Canadian Tire in Whitby, Ont., saw an unmarked police car slamming into two people riding a scooter. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think maybe the cops watch too many crime movies,\u201d said former Toronto Mayor John Sewell, who is now with the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cop thought he was doing something reasonable \u2014 I mean, maybe he didn\u2019t think at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
All of this happened on June 25, 2024, when a team of Toronto officers went to a mall plaza with a Canadian Tire to see if they could arrest a man named Trayvon Palmer, who was wanted for breaching his bail.<\/p>\n
The team saw him riding an electric scooter with another man, Paul Lewis. That\u2019s when one officer says over the radio, \u201cWe should block them in and take them right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Const. Joshua Baksh took that as a signal to accelerate the unmarked vehicle into the moving scooter, launching the pair into the air.<\/p>\n
Palmer takes off, Baksh follows, and they run through the garden centre. Meanwhile, Lewis heads in the other direction, and a gun is sent flying when he gets hit by the second car.<\/p>\n
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Const. Joshua Baksh Const. Joshua Baksh, seen in orange in the video, can be seen chasing after the suspects through the garden centre at Canadian Tire. <\/p>\n
The video shows Lewis get arrested and paramedics load the severely injured man into an ambulance to take him to the hospital.<\/p>\n
He had spinal and rib fractures, among other injuries, said his lawyer, David Campos. Campos challenged the gun charges using Canada\u2019s Charter of Rights, arguing he was subjected to arbitrary and dangerous force, and arbitrarily detained.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was not a suspect, not wanted, not observed committing crimes,\u201d said Campos. \u201cHe should never have to be facing being run over by a 4,000-pound vehicle used as a kinetic weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n
It emerged that Lewis was violating his bail because he was outside his home without a surety. The judge tossed the gun evidence, effectively acquitting Lewis on all but a failure to comply with bail conditions.<\/p>\n
The Crown withdrew the charges against Palmer. Baksh was charged by the Special Investigations Unit and pleaded guilty to assault.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the matter is before the courts, any internal disciplinary matters will wait until criminal matters have concluded. The officer continues to work at TPS in a non-public facing role,\u201d the Toronto Police Service said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Through the Toronto Police Association, Baksh declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unmarked Toronto police car hit two people on a scooter during a 2024 takedown in Whitby. Jon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":["post-804678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}