After nearly one year, two closed investigations, and a public squabbling match between Toronto police and the agency tasked with investigating them, criminal charges have finally been laid in the case of Dorian Barton.On Friday, the Special Investigations Unit charged Toronto police Const. Glenn Weddell with
assault causing bodily harm in connection with Barton’s arrest during the G20 summit last June. The charge came on the same day the Toronto Star publicly revealed Weddell was the previous unnamed officer photographed during Barton’s violent arrest.
“I’m just happy that they laid charges,” Barton said Friday. “And I’m definitely happy that this whole SIU process is over.”
Barton, a 30-year-old cookie maker, alleges he was photographing police at a Queen’s Park demonstration when he was slammed with a riot shield and beaten with a baton, leaving him with bruises and a broken arm.
The SIU launched an investigation on June 27, 2010, but wound up shutting down and reopening the case twice, each time citing lack of evidence.
Some critics have suggested a “blue wall of silence” within the police service has complicated the role of the SIU, a civilian agency that investigates claims of police officers causing injury, death or a sexual assault.
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Source: Toronto Star
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