My Latest Assault

The police advised me to do this after I gave them my statement. I didn’t see much point at first, but now I feel the necessity for a variety of reasons.

So here’s what happened:

I was walking westbound along Gerrard Street just past Yonge on the south side, as I do just about every work day (and thus had done well over a thousand times before). I was about 20 metres from the door of the Elephant & Castle Pub when I felt a violent blow to my left shoulder and neck that caused me to pitch forward sprawling to the ground. I landed on my left knee (sustaining a large, deep bleeding scrape just below and left of the patella), my left elbow (sustaining a torn left quadriceps and considerable bruising) and both hands (sustaining a torn muscle in my right thumb and cuts and abrasions to both palmar surfaces). The impact of the computer carried in my backpack also left an L-shaped bruise near my left shoulder blade. The contents of my shirt pockets went flying onto the sidewalk, including my personal music player which skidded over the pavement after separating from both its headphones (which were also yanked out of my ears) and its protective case which broke apart upon impact with the sidewalk. My hat was also dislodged.

I didn’t linger on the deck before getting up on one knee and turning around. I expected to see an assailant looming over me, but what I saw was someone walking briskly back towards the corner. I shouted after him and inquired, in accusing terms, why he had attacked me. At that point he stopped about 10 metres away and turned partway back. He looked taller than me (I was still not standing), younger (30-40ish) with a flabby build, short brown hair (perhaps with a grey streak), clean-shaven, no glasses, Caucasian, dressed in casual or casual/business clothes (light shirt, slacks, no tie or jacket). In reply he said “You spat on my car.” Then he began to turn away again. I turned back to my various bits lying on the sidewalk and scooped them into my hat. Then I stood up and started running back towards the corner, at which point my admitted assailant began to run away. There is no more accurate way to put this, so at the risk of being offensive I have to say that he ran like a fat-assed girl. Quickly enough, though.

When I reached the corner I saw a large SUV-type vehicle stopped in the southbound curb lane on Yonge south of Gerrard. The driver side door was just closing as I arrived. I moved to the edge of the sidewalk to see the license plate and made a mental note of the number, which I immediately reinforced by dropping my backpack (and hatful of electronic bits and pieces) and taking out a pen and paper to write it down, along with a few brief descriptive notes (above). For those who can’t read my writing (to be fair I am left-handed and I had just crash-landed on the sidewalk on that very side), the note says: BCYM 682, Land Rover (or Range Rover), Green, middle aged male, short hair (the rest of the note was added later when I went into work to phone in the incident). I would have gotten out my camera as well if the vehicle had not left the scene with some haste. I expect my photos would have been redundant, since my assailant had chosen to stop right under a police surveillance camera (above).

It occurred to me at that point that someone else may have witnessed the incident, and indeed there was a fellow wearing a dark and light striped shirt standing at the same corner after the car pulled away. When I asked him if he had seen what happened he just smirked, muttered something idiotic and walked away – just another public-spirited Torontonian in the mould of the 40 or so witnesses who managed not to see anything when a gangland shootout erupted on Gerrard East near Broadview a few years back (killing an innocent bystander) during another of my more interesting walks to and from work. I decided to keep heading towards work while looking for a police cruiser, since they are usually not hard to find in that area. I went all the way to University Avenue without finding one, and so decided to go into work. I stopped at the security desk to have the officers photograph my leg wound and get the local non-emergency police number. Then I went in, cleaned up and phoned the police.

The person who took my call took my co-ordinates and listened to a brief account of the incident, and then seemed somewhat surprised when I said that I had the license number of my assailant’s vehicle. “So it wasn’t a street person.” she asked (or words to that effect). I replied that no, I was attacked by someone who parked their car on the street, ran after me, attacked me from behind and then ran back to the car and took off. Her response was something like “Oh, road rage.” No wanting to go any farther with helping her to get her head around the incident, I left the matter of characterization open. About 15 minutes later two officers arrived in a cruiser to take my statement out on the street, at which point the public record in this matter begins.

This leaves us with the matter of my assailant’s response to my question, which provided the ostensible reason for whacking me from behind. A short time before I was attacked, I had crossed Yonge Street and before reaching the other side I was – to my mind – subjected to needlessly aggressive crowding by a large, SUV-type vehicle. This happens so often to pedestrians downtown that it is more or less a reflex action to signify disapproval with a wave of the hand or other appropriate gesture – which is of course utterly futile with regards to penetrating the consciousness of someone driving a dark-glazed behemoth. In that instance my response was to spit my gum (Trident Extra-Care Spearmint) in disgust towards the spot the offending vehicle was vacating as it swung into the lane behind me. Unless the vehicle was even closer to me than I recall there is little chance I could have hit it (I’m pretty sure I saw the gum on the road near the spot afterwards, but I wasn’t about to check further during rush hour). I am looking forward to watching the police recording to see if my attacker even took the time to inspect his vehicle for evidence of spittle before running after me - like, as I say, a fat-assed girl.

Assuming Toronto’s finest are worth their salt, there will be more to come.