It was a crime caught on tape by some unsuspecting students taking video for a class project - a
driver getting out of his car to allegedly assault a cyclist who prevented him from turning at a yellow light. The kids caught the entire thing as it unfolded at
Queen and Bay on Tuesday afternoon and turned their evidence over to police. They've now made an arrest and the suspect is almost as surprising as the footage itself - he's a cop.
Constable Darius Tierman, a 21-year-veteran of the
Toronto Force and a recipient of a teamwork commendation last June, has been on leave since October 2004. He turned himself in to 52 Division on Wednesday morning and made a brief court appearance at
Old City Hall later in the afternoon.
Police accounts of the incident match what the kids' cameras captured. (You can see it In The Raw
here). A driver is seen getting out of his car when the cyclist didn't go through the intersection at the amber signal, and then begins loudly swearing at the rider and honking his horn. As the students watched in stunned shock, he got out of the car, grabbed the bike and cold cocked the owner from behind. He then got back into the car and drove away, but not before everyone watching got his license number.
The cyclist lost a tooth in the incident, but otherwise wasn't seriously hurt. The man at the wrong end of that punch is stunned to hear that the person accused of attacking him with so much rage is a cop. "Shock," he relates. "More than that. Because I didn't expect that, that was shock for me."
But Andre Sokol is determined to be the bigger man, even though he says he's still 'shaking' from the incident. "If you get a chance, talk to him," he concludes. "Tell him this from my heart. I'm telling you this from my heart. I feel sorry for him and ... tell him I said God bless him. God bless us all."
It's not clear why Tierman has been on leave for almost three years, but the allegations he's facing are serious. He's been charged with assault causing bodily harm but
was released on $5,000 bail, along with an order to continue undergoing psychiatric care. The victim
still has many questions about what happened, but they likely won't be answered for some time. As part of the conditions of his freedom, Tierman isn't allowed to communicate with Sokol.