DETECTIVE 'KICKED, ASSAULTED' PRISONER, CROWN SAYS

Evidence against cop is 'overwhelming,' court told in closing of
officer's second trial

There is overwhelming independent evidence to back up witnesses who
say a Toronto detective angrily broke a prisoner's arm in a police
station interview room, the Crown says.

"He went there and kicked Mr. (Gary) Shuparski," prosecutor John
McInnes said in his final arguments Thursday. "He assaulted him."

But Gary Clewley, who is defending Det. Christopher Higgins, countered
that the prisoner and two other drug traffickers cooked up the story
out of revenge for being arrested on April 1, 2004.

"These men are criminals and they came here with an axe to grind," he
told provincial court Justice Lucia Favret.

This is Higgins' second trial for assault causing bodily harm to
Shuparski. He was found not guilty in 2005 but the acquittal was
overturned on appeal.

Shuparski, who has since died of unrelated causes, testified at the
first trial that Higgins punched him and kicked him "like a football."

The 120-pound addict sustained a classic "nightstick fracture"
consistent with his account of the attack by the 275-pound officer,
McInnes said. "If his account is false it would be a remarkable
coincidence."

But Clewley pointed out that medical experts testified Shuparski could
have sustained the fracture to his forearm as he resisted arrest - for
instance, by hitting a hard object, like furniture, or the floor as he
was being brought down by a burly officer. "Everybody testified that
this was chaos: shouting, guns pointing, furniture being thrown
around," the defence lawyer said.

Shuparski showed signs of being high on methadone or crack, which
would explain why he didn't notice his fractured arm until hours later
in the police station, where he blamed Higgins, Clewley said.

He even told medical staff who treated him that he sustained his
injuries while being arrested - that is, in his apartment, Clewley
argued.

But the prosecutor countered that Shuparski never complained about a
broken arm during his arrest or booking in the station, but he did
grumble about a cut to his head and the tightness of the handcuffs.

"He comes into the police station - the evidence is overwhelming, I
suggest - without the injury and leaves with the injury," McInnes
argued. And the two other prisoners that backed his story were not
sophisticated enough, nor did they have the opportunity to collude,
McInnes argued.

Favret reserved her decision.