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.
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.
It emerged in court that the takedown was started by a misunderstanding of a comment over the police radio — none of it went according to plan — and it ultimately resulted in an assault conviction of that Toronto officer.
“I think maybe the cops watch too many crime movies,” said former Toronto Mayor John Sewell, who is now with the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition.
“The cop thought he was doing something reasonable — I mean, maybe he didn’t think at all,” he said.
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.
The team saw him riding an electric scooter with another man, Paul Lewis. That’s when one officer says over the radio, “We should block them in and take them right now.”
Const. Joshua Baksh took that as a signal to accelerate the unmarked vehicle into the moving scooter, launching the pair into the air.
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.
The video shows Lewis get arrested and paramedics load the severely injured man into an ambulance to take him to the hospital.
He had spinal and rib fractures, among other injuries, said his lawyer, David Campos. Campos challenged the gun charges using Canada’s Charter of Rights, arguing he was subjected to arbitrary and dangerous force, and arbitrarily detained.
“He was not a suspect, not wanted, not observed committing crimes,” said Campos. “He should never have to be facing being run over by a 4,000-pound vehicle used as a kinetic weapon.”
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.
The Crown withdrew the charges against Palmer. Baksh was charged by the Special Investigations Unit and pleaded guilty to assault.
“As 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,” the Toronto Police Service said in a statement.
Through the Toronto Police Association, Baksh declined to comment.
