129 Replies to ““Burrows could not explain why the driver crossed lanes of traffic and drove up onto the curb.””

  1. So what happened? Was it the cyclist who steered the car into the opposite lanes?

  2. I think Bryant was accosted by a drunk road raged product of our latte Liberal society.
    The drunk paid with his life, which is often the case with stupidity.
    Bryant is simply lucky he’s not a Conservative. He would long ago have been found guilty in the court of media opinion.

  7. Politicians, lawyers, RCMP and media ………… all above the law in Canada.
    I’m sick of it.

  8. Lieberal killing a birkenstock lieberal. More and faster,please.Darwin strikes again.

  10. Good point Doo.
    I’m not sure where you’re coming from Mark Peters. In my view, then and now, the cyclist had it coming. Hanging off a strangers vehicle, turning the steering wheel and threatening to kill the driver will likely have only one outcome, and a predictable one at that.
    Re: basketball courts
    More in Saskatchewan please, the ball courts are in worse shape than the roads! Obviously basketball courts will not solve the social woes of society, but we still need them.

  12. Acceptable collateral damage?
    Bryant and Abramovitch, one of Canada’s top entertainment lawyers, had been out celebrating the 12th anniversary of their wedding.
    There was no reason to ask Bryant for a breathalyzer, says Burrows, and according to a Toronto Star story, there was no alcohol at their dinner. Police allowed Abramovitch to leave the scene without giving a statement – again, usual practice for someone easily located. Bryant was put in the back of a police cruiser before being taken to the traffic services station in the Liberty Village area. He didn’t give a statement.
    http://www.thestar.com/article/691400

  13. “I’m not sure where you’re coming from Mark Peters. In my view, then and now, the cyclist had it coming. Hanging off a strangers vehicle, turning the steering wheel and threatening to kill the driver will likely have only one outcome, and a predictable one at that.”
    Yeah? Try pulling off “crossing into the opposing lane to scrape unarmed person off on a mailbox” as Regular Joe Citizen and see how far you get.

  15. There are lots of people who ‘have it coming’..however, that does not give one license to end anther’s life in such a callous fashion.
    They seem to be missing the part where he made sure he backed up over the man’s bike..
    The crown says there was no chance of conviction..I say there was no chance because there was no will to do so from the chattering classes.

  16. Well, I’m both a cyclist and a driver. This was the right verdict. Agree re not hearing much about it in the press cf Guergis/Jaffer.
    You act like an idiot when you’re a cyclist, you’ll pay.

  18. Gay Liberal Justice for all !
    Everyone wants to get off criminal charges because of political and lifestyle reasons.
    I am sure Jane Taber and Bob Fife will be apoplectic at this judicial transgression.
    After all they went freaking ballistic over a DUI & Coke charge . . this was murder by car.

  19. I think that the key to this is that the cyclist works for a bicycle courier firm. If bicycle couriers in TO behave in the same way that they do in Edmonton, then it’s not at all surprising that an accident occurred. I have actually been struck by couriers while walking on a public sidewalk downtown, and had these same couriers swear at me to get out of their way while they careened along the sidewalk weaving in and out of the stream of pedestrians.

  20. I wonder how “Joe Average” or any Conservative would have fared in the same circumstances.
    Somehow I think the Crown Attorney would still be trying the case , if for no other reason than to send a message to the “masses” that Rambo / Dirty Harry conduct is not tolerated by Liberals in Ontario.

  22. I just imagine that that was my wife or daughter driving that convertible while some drunk creep was assailing the vehicle.
    Kate
    I may get 20-life, but it was still the correct thing to do from the “self-preservation” perspective.JMO
    Kursk
    Personally, in that situation, in a different jurisdiction, a “cap’n that a$$” would have been warranted. The driver of this vehicle had absolutely no idea what the cyclist would do had he stopped the car and given the assailant the opportunity carry-out his DRUNKEN DEATH THREATS. The only time the word “callous” comes into play, is when describing the behaviour of the deceased.

  23. I guess Darcy Allan Sheppard didn’t know that when you ride a tiger you don’t choose where or when to get off.
    I hope the other Road Lice were paying attention.
    Yeah? Try pulling off “crossing into the opposing lane to scrape unarmed person off on a mailbox” as Regular Joe Citizen and see how far you get.
    ~Kate
    Good point.
    But I think justice was served in this particular case.
    Darcy Allan Sheppard seems to have been up to no good.
    Some may think Michael James Bryant’s actions were “suboptimal” or “disproportionate”, but Michael James Bryant shouldn’t have been an intended victim of whatever Darcy Allan Sheppard was planning to do to him that day.
    I’d maybe have done the same, except I wouldn’t have backed over the bike because it might damage my car further than having some yahoo hanging off the side scraping the paintjob.
    Bicycles were invented before cars were and are contemporaries of horse transportation.
    Bicycles shouldn’t be on the roads or the sidewalks anymore than horses should be.
    To all those who think Michael James Bryant should have gotten convicted, I hope you get confronted by a raging yahoo like Darcy Allan Sheppard and the yahoo gets the better of you in the confrontation.

  24. While I cannot approve biased treatment before the courts….I condone this verdict.
    Bryant was faced with an emergency situation….a drunk nutter uttering death threats attempting to gain control of the vehicle…..he did well given his skill set.
    BTW look at the bicycle protesters….would you give any of these critters a ride???? No I wouldn’t either even when I was younger and more fit.

  25. This verdict definitely doesn’t pass the smell test, starting with the Bryants’ saying they had no wine with their dinner. COME ON. You’re out to celebrate your 12th anniversary and you have nothing to drink? I know it’s possible but is it probable.
    We’ll never know because Bryant wasn’t asked to take a breathalyzer test. Hmmmm …
    The victim, no matter what kind of creep he was or how aggressive, was slammed into a mailbox or lamp post to get him off the car, was left in a heap, and THEN BRYANT DROVE OFF.
    Bryant left the scene of an accident. As it turns out, it was an accident where someone died. Innocent or guilty, you can’t just leave the scene of an accident as though nothing’s happened. Two lawyers would have known that.
    Now, these two lawyers are high-profile, high social flyers in Toronto. It’s pretty clear, since all charges have been dropped, that they inhabit a privileged, hermetically sealed aerie.
    At the very least, Michael Bryant should have been charged with leaving the scene of an accident, even if he is innocent of the much more serious charges. For the former provincial Liberal Attorney General to get preferential treatment before the law, which it’s clear he did in this situation, really stinks. If the law doesn’t equally apply to Joe and Jane Citizen AND the former AG, whose duty it is to uphold and DEFEND provincial laws, then it’s clear that there are two classes of citizen in Ontario: those with money and position on the left and, then, the rest of us.
    But, then, with the Liberals, we already knew that, didn’t we?

  26. This is the appropriate result.
    The holier than thou attitude of bicycle riders is well know. They indulge in the most annoying “critical mass” demos in Vancouver where hundreds of them take over entire streets.
    In Bryant’s case I would have done the same thing to shake that lunatic off my car.
    This also demonstrates the stupidity of the what can only be described as green transporters.

  27. “I have actually been struck by couriers while walking on a public sidewalk downtown,”
    I think the crux of the issue is this: there are two types of people, those that will react and those that cower when put in a physical confrontation. If a punk on a bike runs into me when I’m walking, I sure as hell am not the one who will be apologizing!

  28. Bryant left the scene of an accident. As it turns out, it was an accident where someone died. Innocent or guilty, you can’t just leave the scene of an accident as though nothing’s happened.
    ~batb
    It wasn’t an accident.
    It was a confrontation that Sheppard initiated and lost.

  29. Hmm…I will keep some of these comments in mind the next time someone is belligerent to me, say in a bar..it gives me the justification to run you the hell over and scrape you off my car if you get in my way in the parking lot.
    After all, you would ‘have it coming’ right?

  33. “the next time someone is belligerent to me, say in a bar..it gives me the justification to run you the hell over and scrape you off my car if you get in my way in the parking lot.”
    ~Kursk
    Bad analogy.
    Your analogy describes two separate incidents, two separate locations.
    Also it fails to take into account that the “belligerent” may have been lurking for you in the parking lot but waited until you got into the safety of your vehicle.
    In that case I’d get on my cell phone, call 911, tell them the bar I was at, that I was currently under attack, then cry out abruptly cutting the signal.
    Then wait.
    You can guess the rest.
    The Sheppard/Bryant confrontation was a single running incident where Bryant was attempting to flee Sheppard’s attack against him.
    By the way, did you notice that Bryant’s car is an open convertable and that Sheppard is wearing a helemet and elbow/knee pads?
    Yep, body armor advantage.
    Details, details, eh?

  34. Kate, that’s the first time I’ve seen the YouTube clip of this non-accident.
    It does appear, that the collision was instigated by the driver of the auto, who then sped away. I don’t see any part of where Mr. Sheppard played a contributing factor.
    From the YouTube clip, this does not appear to be anything like what is being discussed in many of the above comments, nor in the media accounts of what occurred.

  35. Oz..Bryant clipped the courier to begin the incident.
    ~Kursk
    No he didn’t.
    Bryant was looking backward for a break in traffic.
    There wasn’t room for a car to park between his convertable and the parked car in front.
    Sheppard passed Bryant and pulled into the gap without indicating by signaling, as cyclists often do.
    Bryant had no reason to believe there was anyone there.
    Bryant bumped Sheppards bike, no harm no foul.
    Although it was Sheppard’s fault because he didn’t signal his intentions to Bryant, Sheppard pursued Bryant with intended assault.
    Sheppard lost the confrontation.
    Bicycles do not belong on the same roads as cars.

  36. Where we live, a little bit in the country, I will often come across groups of middle-aged men, usually slightly overweight, in tight black spandex-type cycling shorts (they think the are Lance Armstrongs, but in truth their bodies look as ugly as hell, fat rolls, etc. – dressing the way they do should be illegal), riding side by side on the road on $5,000 bicycles.
    They won’t move to let you pass – screw the car is their attitude. The only way you can get around them is to cross over into the other lane, sometimes over a yellow line.
    So while I agree with Kate on her post, I also find I have little sympathy for cyclists.

  37. ‘Politicians, lawyers, RCMP and media ………… all above the law in Canada.
    I’m sick of it.”
    Posted by: BCer at May 25, 2010 12:54 PM
    You figure, eh?
    http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2010/02/03/charge-against-opp-commissioner-julian-fantino-withdrawn.aspx
    AND
    http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Dropped+cocaine+charge+against+former+Rahim+Jaffer+stirs+controversy/2663357/story.html
    Now I’m not sayin’ there’s a pattern here or anything, BUT, if I was a member of The Ivory Tower Club and I had a little fall from Grace, I’d rather do it in Toronto….

  39. From what I can understand from the reported facts, the cyclist was drunk and prone to rage. He engineered the circumstances of his death. Terrible but true.

  40. *
    “scrape unarmed person off on a mailbox”
    Wait a minute.
    Does this mean if I catch some degenerate junkie burglar
    breaking into my house at 2:00am… I get to blow him out
    of his Air-Jordans?
    Or is killing someone in self-defense only for former Liberal
    cabinet ministers?
    *

  41. A friend of Wee Dalton’s named Mike,
    Ran over a rider and bike.
    But he had not a trial
    And he said with a smile
    “With friends, you can do as you like.”

  42. OZ, you have to be among the least reasonable people I’ve come across.
    The video does show what appears to be Bryant hitting Sheppards bike with his car.
    “No harm, no foul.” That’s ridiculous. When a car is used to intimidate or hit someone, it’s a weapon. I figured even a dolt like you could figure that out. Apparently not. Add cyclists to the long list of people OZ hates.
    Bryant is well known for being hyper-aggressive, and often bragged that Muhammed Ali was his hero, that he was a boxer himself, and god help anyone who crossed him.
    Sheppard may indeed not be the poster boy for cyclists (as was hammered home repeatedly by the high-powered PR firm Bryant hired), but that misses the point. If anyone was “asking for it”, or “had it coming”, it was the guy who figured he could use his car to hit someone who got in his way.
    Bryant had numerous options, and he picked the worst ones. He used his car to kill someone. He didn’t have to cross the road. This wasn’t just a case of panicking, this was hyper-aggressive behaviour.
    I’d like this to have gone to court, and have a judge decide whether Bryant was guilty of anything, based on the evidence, not on who your friends are.

  43. posted by OZ “Bicycles do not belong on the same roads as cars”
    That says it all about you.
    Not only do they belong on the road, they are considered vehicles according to the law. The law says they belong on the road. It’s jerks like you who don’t belong on the road – the one’s who think the laws are only important if they suit your purpose.

  44. Kursk,
    You are an idiot. Those are two different scenarios. But you know that don’t you.
    Neo,
    If a degenerate junkie burglar breaks into your home at 2am … and if you have the means, do blow him out of his air-jordans, it may save your life and the lives of your family if you have one.
    Is that lawful? Maybe, maybe not, depends on how a judge feels about self-defense. The point is, you will do better facing a judge with a lawyer than a drugged out junkie in your home with nothing but your pecker in your hand.

  45. The more interesting aspect of this case is that it might actually establish a legal precedent for using force if you are accosted , say by a burglar in your own home.
    Previous to this ruling , assuming it stands , the police and courts were more likely to charge the victim of the assault rather the the criminal if excessive forec was used in the victim’s defence
    “The evidence establishes that Mr. Sheppard was the aggressor in the altercation with Mr. Bryant. He was agitated and angry, without any provocation from Mr. Bryant and his wife,” Mr. Peck said in the Ontario Court of Justice.
    … it would be poetic justice if this ruling was used as reasonable grounds when defending oneself !

  46. Like some other posters, I’m concerned about the attitude towards the cyclist: “he had it coming to him, he was beligerant,” so it’s OK that he died.
    The law is — or should be — impartial to whether or not someone “deserves” what they got.
    Bryant’s car veered dangerously over the centre line, across four lanes of traffic, on a main downtown thoroughfare, which is extremely busy at the time of night he was driving (I know the strip well), and mounted the opposite sidewalk, where the cyclist, presumably, holding onto his car, was scraped off and ended up dead.
    Bryant LEFT THE SCENE OF THE ACCIDE … ER, ALTERCATION, IF YOU PREFER, OZ, and sped off. If he thought he was innocent, he should have stayed at the scene. If he thought he was guilty, he should still have remained at the scene. Bryant’s a lawyer, for heaven’s sake. He should have known what to do. (On the other hand, he was a former politician, hoping someday to run for the premiership of the province, a high-profile Torontonian, and probably didn’t want to attract the negative limelight this incident would obviously entail, so he hoped he could just leave the scene and not deal with it. Obviously, he thought better of his actions — or maybe his wife, also a lawyer prevailed upon him to — and stopped a few blocks away from the incident. There WERE witnesses, after all, who had probably written down his license plate number.)
    When he was apprehended by the police, he was not required to undergo a breathalizer test. What’s that all about, seeing as he and his wife had been out celebrating their anniversary in ritzy Yorkville? Wouldn’t the police assume — or shouldn’t they have assumed — that there might have been alcohol consumed as part of the celebration?
    I am no fan of Toronto cyclists. In fact, I HATE them! They’re always breaking the law, not signalling, going the wrong way on one-way streets, riding across crossWALKS, running red lights, riding on sidewalks, etc., etc., making driving in Toronto a real drag. But, just because too many of them are disrespectful, lawless, louts, I would never feel justified in hitting one of them and then leaving the scene.
    I’m really concerned that so many commenters here are justifying Bryant’s actions and the subsequent verdict, where Bryant gets off Scott free, because Sheppard was drunk, unruly, and an a**hole — and we don’t like cyclists anyway.
    Feelings should never trump the law. I’m very disappointed that the Crown has dropped all charges, as it’s clear that Michael Bryant did not comport himself as a former Attorney General –let alone, a human being — should after the altercation with Mr. Sheppard. Even if Mr. Sheppard was totally in the wrong, Mr. Bryant should not have left the scene. And, a breathalizer test should have been performed, seeing as his veering over four lanes of traffic on a main Toronto thoroughfare and mounting the sidewalk opposite was a rather spectacular “anomaly” for any vehicle to perform. It almost appears as though the police thought of him as “a special case” when they made the decision not to require that Bryant undergo a breathalizer test.

  48. The video does show what appears to be Bryant hitting Sheppards bike with his car.
    ~Jimbo
    Hitting?
    Why not use the word smashing or OBLITERATING?
    Unquestionably Bryant’s car bumps Sheppards bike.
    Was the bike damaged?
    No. Sheppard used that bike to pursue Bryant.
    Was Sheppard injured?
    No. Sheppard got on his bike and pursued Bryant with the intent to physically overcome him.
    So explain to me where the harm or foul was, Jimbo.
    Reason with me.
    Was it because Bryant didn’t get out of his car and kneel down saying, “Please forgive me for bumping your bike, you non-signaling Road Louse?”
    “I’m sorry that God didn’t give me eyes in the back of my head so that I could make up for your lack of personal driving skills and your careless stupidity in choosing such a dangerous mode of transportation?”
    Explain to me how Bryant can be looking backward for a gap in traffic to merge into and looking forward to see a cyclist, that shouldn’t be there because Sheppard gave no indication that he would be there by signaling before passing Bryant and abruptly stopping in front of him.
    “Michael James Bryant, 43 years of age, of Toronto, is now charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death,” said Toronto police Sgt. Tim Burrows.
    Those are the charges, batb.
    When Bryant is charged with “leaving the scene” we’ll discuss that.
    I don’t think Bryant was criminally negligent, he was fleeing an attack which is what authorities tell you to do.
    Was he operating his vehicle dangerously while he was being assaulted by Sheppard?
    Yes.
    But the circumstance was that Bryant was under assault, in an open convertible, and stopping or getting out of the vehicle weren’t an option in his mind while under assault.

  49. OK Abe..I’ll bite, even after the ad hominem.
    You are drunk. I bump you in a bar. You take offense, so you confront me in a parking lot as I am leaving by leaning in my window (maybe you even throw a punch or two). I get you off by veering over as I accelerate and plaster you against a fire hydrant. You die. I leave the scene. I even refuse a breathalyzer test.To top it all off, that bike you brought ? Yeah, well I backed over that too for good measure.
    Now, Abe, replace in my scenario the particulars from the incident in question. If you are saying it is a matter of degree, you would be wrong..time difference between the two? a minute, or 5 seconds, what does it mater; I would still be in the wrong and liable for murder or manslaughter charges.
    Sure, I may have been scared, but my actions caused the death of someone. There is no law in Ontario (or anywhere for that matter in Canada) that says you can go free because ‘he had it coming’. This is where the comments are disturbing.
    What some of you people here are engaging in, is justification for homicide.
    Don’t fool yourself; some posters here are right. It becomes a slippery slope.

  50. “There is no law in Ontario (or anywhere for that matter in Canada) that says you can go free because ‘he had it coming’.”
    The Crown doesn’t bother with charges if they don’t think they can get a conviction.
    In Calgary there once was a drugstore at the corner of 14th Street and 17 Anvenue S.W. called Crooks Drugs.
    On multiple occasions, over a period of months, it was robbed by the an armed group of the same masked yahoos.
    Each time they created more damage in the store and more fear in the proprietor.
    The second last time they robbed it they threatened the proprietor’s wife and even threatened to harm his children.
    The proprietor acquired a shotgun and kept it behind the counter.
    The last time the yahoos robbed Crooks Drugs the proprietor pulled out his shotgun and shot one of them in the store and pursued another out of the store and down the side walk where the proprietor shot the yahoo in the back and killed him.
    The police charged the proprietor with murder.
    At the end of the trial, a Calgary jury declared the proprietor innocent and he walked.
    True story.

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