VICTIM'S FAMILY URGES JURY TO RULE DEATH WAS HOMICIDE

Police Officer Pulled Man's Neck With Nightstick

Kenneth Allen's mother and other members of his family want a coroner's jury
to find that his death was a homicide because a police officer used a
nightstick to drag him into a police station.

They are supported by the Black Action Defence Committee.

But a lawyer representing three of the officers argued that the jury should
find that Allen's death was accidental, because Constable Paul Van Seters,
the officer who put the stick around Allen's neck, did not intend to harm
him.

Lawyers began making their submissions to the jury yesterday at the inquest,
which began Sept. 13.

Allen, 32, was brought to Toronto's 52 Division on Dundas St. W. high on
cocaine on Nov. 29, 1991, after displaying bizarre behaviour, assaulting a
streetcar conductor and struggling violently with four officers.

He was dragged through the station with a nightstick under his neck and died
later in hospital.

Van Seters was later charged with criminal negligence causing death and
criminal negligence causing bodily harm, on the theory that he had
asphyxiated Allen with his nightstick. The officer was acquitted in 1996.

Lawyer Peter Rosenthal, representing the Black Action Defence Committee,
told the jurors that homicide involves "causing the death of another human
being directly or indirectly," and he added that "this is a homicide because
the nightstick contributed to that death.

"It was a purposeful action by Van Seters with the nightstick and it caused
someone's death," he added. "It's surely not an accident."

But lawyer Kevin McGivney, who is representing police officers Nick Ashley,
Bill Kemp and Terry Rivers, argued that the case was no more about homicide
than it was about suicide.

"Can there be any suggestion, given the evidence, that he used the
nightstick to stop Allen from biting, that there was any intention to injure
Mr. Allen?" McGivney asked. "In fact he testified that he had no intention
to injure the man whatsoever."

The inquest continues this morning in coroner's court.