Toronto officer charged with assault Beating of man recorded on videotape

A city police officer was charged today with assault in the videotaped beating of a landed Somali immigrant in a case that could have resulted in the man’s deportation.

The charge is the latest stain on the reputation of the city’s police force, which has been stung recently by allegations of corruption and racial profiling.

Const. Roy Preston, who had been on the force for two years at the time of the incident, appears in court July 12.

Preston is charged in the beating of Said Jama Jama, who faced charges of causing a disturbance and assaulting police on Aug. 4, 2003, after a fight broke out in a parking lot at a coffee shop in the northwest end of the city.

Jama Jama, who was 21 at the time, said he was trying to break up the scuffle when police arrived.

He alleges an officer grabbed him by the throat and punched him even though he did nothing to provoke him. Jama Jama tried to flee but was caught, and said the same officer then threw him to the pavement and stomped on his head, causing him to lose a tooth.

Jama Jama did not file a complaint with police at the time.

In December, an amateur videotape was released that showed an officer punching Jama Jama in the face without warning. The video was shot by tourists from Ottawa without the knowledge of either Jama Jama or the officer.

Photos of Jama Jama after the incident showed he had a bruised and bloodied face, fat lip and was missing a tooth - injuries that weren’t present at the start of the video.

Police at the scene said in their notes that Jama Jama attempted to strike an officer, though none of them mentioned that an officer punched Jama Jama.

Police Chief Julian Fantino ordered an internal investigation after viewing the videotape, which was aired repeatedly on local TV stations in December.

Charges against Jama Jama were dropped in February after a Crown prosecutor reviewed the video.

Jama Jama’s lawyer had said his client could have been deported had he been convicted.

Several other Toronto police officers face a number of charges after an RCMP-led investigation into organized crime resulted in allegations of wrongdoing and corruption.

Many of the charges stem from police officers tipping off bar owners about liquor licence investigations and influencing the reduction or withdrawal of liquor licence penalties in exchange for payment.

Two of those charged are the sons of former police chief William McCormack.

In the fall of 2002, the Toronto Star ran a series of articles on race and crime in the city that suggested police treated blacks more harshly than whites.

The Toronto police union launched an unsuccessful lawsuit against the newspaper, accusing it of libelling police officers.

Fantino has denied that police practices were consistent with racial profiling.

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