Attorney General wins.

RIP Darcy Allan Sheppard

Image from CTV Toronto

In case you didn’t see the news today, former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant has been charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death (Darcy Allan Sheppard). According to news sources, Michal Bryant and Darcy Allan Sheppard (a Toronto courier) had an altercation (it sounds like Mr. Bryant’s black convertable hit Sheppard’s bicycle). Bryant tried to drive away, with Sheppard clinging to the drivers side door. Bryant drove to the wrong side of the street and proceeded to try to wipe Sheppard from the side of the vehicle, travelling at speeds of around 90km/h. He was eventually successful after knocking the cyclist into a mailbox. The cyclist fell off and was run over, before Bryant drove away. He turned himself in later that evening. Sounds like the scene from a movie, but I am not making it up.

Here is the Toronto Star article.

Witnesses describe the events

I am no expert on law, and was not a witness to the event myself, but to me it sounds like so far Michael Bryant is getting away with murder. He is alreay out of custody until his Oct. 19 court date (I know, innocent until proven guilty). Let me propose a similar scenario. What if the cyclist and motorist had gotten into the same initial argument but then instead of the motorist using his car to bash the cyclist to death, the cyclist used his bike lock and bludgeoned the driver to death. Think the cyclist would have gotten off on bail? Would the cyclist be able to give a staged press release and ask the media to respect his family’s privacy? Would he have been charged with ‘dangerous operation of a bicycle lock causing death’? I am very interested to watch this case proceed, and curious to see what the actual sentencing for the guilty party will be. I wonder if he will receive a sentance similar to the one a cyclist might receive in the scenario I described above? Time will tell. In the meantime, good job Toronto cyclists for protesting the crime and the charges. Keep it up!

photo from: Martin Reis

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 at 7:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, bad drivers, body check, cop, critical mass, cyclist, driving, platerage, rants, reckless driving, road rage, stupid people. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.