The Toronto Star to the Rescue. Seriously.

The paper has unearthed a video that clearly shows the face of a police officer who beat a G20 protestor, and in doing so appears to have done more than the police themselves to uncover misconduct during the summit.

Noting that policing at the G20 was a fiasco from start to finish, the Globe and Mail’s Christie Blatchford writes that both Chief of Police Bill Blair and the head of the Special Investigative Unit Ian Scott “went too far.” Blair clearly did when he suggested Adam Nobody, whose violent smothering by police was caught on tape, might have somehow deserved what happened to him despite the fact that there was no evidence he did anything wrong. But Blatchford’s beef with the SIU is harder to grasp. The unit, tasked with investigating police misconduct, found that there was credible evidence police used excessive force, but then declined to actually charge any officers. Surely this isn’t going too far – it’s only going half way.

Rosie DiManno, who usually spends her days writing about the graphic details of Toronto’s latest violent crime or assessing the play of the Toronto Maple Leafs with equally nauseating sensationalism, seems to be doing some public good today. She’s the one trumpeting a new tape obtained by the Toronto Star that clearly shows a police officer viciously jabbing Nobody with a baton while he’s lying beneath about 800 pounds of cops. The baton-happy officer’s face is clearly visible. This means that the defence used by Blair and the SIU – that the offending officers couldn’t be identified – is now null. “[W]hat do you intend to do about it now, sir?” she demands of Blair. Get a screen shot of this, because these words will likely never appear in The Mark again: Well done, Rosie DiManno.

A Toronto Star editorial takes a similar stance, and says the ball is now firmly in Blair’s court. “For the sake of public confidence in the integrity of Toronto’s police force, he needs to catch any rogue officer involved in abuses suffered by Nobody,” the editors declare. That strong statement is rendered a little farcical by the gentleman in question’s last name, but nevertheless, good point.