The judge stayed the charges Alafe faced: dangerous driving and assault with a weapon for allegedly driving his vehicle at others. “Frankly, looking at it on an overall basis, Officer Venn was bullying someone in his control because he could,” Lenz said. “This looks more like punishment than an attempt to elicit good behaviour.” Without the cell videos, Lenz said, he would likely have simply believed the officer’s testimony. However, the public is entitled to see for themselves the behaviour of the officers in the cell videos, he said. “If anything there was escalation and there was little or no type of reasonable dialogue as between the defendant and the officer,” Lenz said.

Source: thestar July 22, 2017 10:52 UTC