Mary Rogan’s cover story in this month’s Toronto Life promises to deliver “the untold story of the cop who pulled the trigger” in the shooting of Sammy Yatim.
Indeed, a detailed biography of police officer and accused murderer James Forcillo is presented, with his childhood, his stylish wife, his years of service and his “shy, quiet” personality all described. A photo of Forcillo pushing his baby daughter in a swing is included. But before that, Rogan provides a quick account of Sammy Yatim’s last moments unlike any other that has appeared in the press to date.
A “good shoot”?
According to Rogan, Sammy Yatim tried to slash a woman’s throat shortly before he was shot to death by Const. James Forcillo. He also lunged at a streetcar driver with his blade, she writes, and could have reached Forcillo “in one leap” had the officer not shot him. What’s more, if Forcillo had allowed Yatim to exit the streetcar, innocent bystanders would have been in the line of police gunfire, and so Forcillo’s actions, Rogan’s piece suggests, were consistent with his training.
“That’s absurd,” says lawyer Peter Rosenthal, who has represented the families of people killed by police, and who has followed the Yatim case closely. “The video speaks for itself and speaks very loudly. Yatim wasn’t exiting the streetcar. We can see that he was not in a position to harm anyone. His killing can’t be described as anything but a methodical execution.”
Rosenthal also takes issue with Rogan’s explanation of the “21-foot rule,” an aspect of police training that defines a danger zone between an officer and an armed suspect within which lethal force might be justifiable.“ Forcillo stood roughly 12 feet from the streetcar door, writes Rogan, with Yatim not far behind it, placing the teen well within the danger zone.
“But (the 21 foot rule) only applies if the officer’s gun is in its holster,” says Rosenthal. “She doesn’t mention that.” Forcillo’s gun was of course drawn, and aimed directly at Yatim throughout the standoff.
Peter Rosenthal isn’t the only one challenging the Toronto Life story.
An Uncanny Resemblance
CANADALAND has spoken to reporters assigned to the Yatim story who say that Mary Rogan’s account of events is indistinguishable from defense statements made by Const. James Forcillo’s lawyer. Due to a publication ban on evidence and testimony from the trial, these reporters have chosen to withhold their names.
At Forcillo’s preliminary hearing, his lawyer Peter Brauti made an opening statement that bears “an uncanny resemblance” to the account found in Rogan’s article, says a reporter who was present in the courtroom. Another reporter wonders if Rogan, who was not present at the preliminary hearing, may have skirted the publication ban if Brauti presented his version of events to Rogan outside of the courtroom. Rogan did indeed interview Brauti for the piece, but she writes that he couldn’t discuss specifics of Forcillo’s case. Nevertheless, Rogan confirms to CANADALAND that Brauti was present whenever she interviewed Irina Forcillo, the wife of the accused officer.
Exclusive Access
Irina Forcillo, unlike her accused husband, is not prohibited from speaking to the press about the case. But for months, she declined every interview request. She broke her silence for Mary Rogan, assumedly with the blessing of her husband and of Peter Brauti. CANADALAND asked Mary Rogan why Irina Forcillo would speak to her and no-one else.
“I’m not sure,” Rogan answered. “It’s a question I’ve been asked many times before regarding other pieces. Who knows why people ever decide to talk?”
Rogan says that no terms were placed on the interview by Forcillo or Brauti. She stands by her story, saying she is “confident that what I’ve written in my piece is accurate and was thoroughly fact-checked.” Toronto Life editor Sarah Fulford (FULL DISCLOSURE: I am a former Toronto Life columnist and a friend of Fulford’s) also supports the story. “I can say with confidence that Mary’s description of what happened on that streetcar is correct,” she writes. “Her sources are good”.
But who are these sources? Where did Rogan get her information from, if not from Forcillo and/or Brauti? Was her detailed account based on video evidence the public has not yet seen? One reporter who has viewed unreleased footage says that it does not confirm Rogan’s account. “It’s unclear what’s going on (in the tape)” says CANADALAND’s source.
An authoritative account?
CANADALAND asked Mary Rogan how she could be so sure that Yatim did what she says he did. None of the eyewitness accounts quoted in the press to date seem consistent with her telling. One witness on the streetcar, Aaron Li-Hill, told the Toronto Star that Yatim was moving too slowly to seem like a real threat. Did Rogan speak to other eyewitnesses who felt otherwise? Or did she rely on police officers and their lawyers for her information?
“I am not prepared to reveal sources,” writes Rogan, who declined to answer the majority of CANADALAND’s questions.
The other side
One source Rogan certainly did not rely on is Julian Falconer, the lawyer representing the Yatim family in their civil suit. If he, or the Yatims, have a different version of events, it is not included in the Toronto Life piece. In fact, Rogan never interviewed Falconer.
CANADALAND reached Julian Falconer by phone. He wouldn’t comment directly on the Toronto Life story or the case, but he did say this:
“In cases like this, there are real incentives to provide narratives and counter-narratives. I’d rather deal with solid evidence in court”.
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Here is Mary Rogan’s response to CANADALAND’s questions:
Did you approach Irina Forcillo directly, or was your access to her arranged through a lawyer?
Peter Brauti was present for my interviews with Irina to ensure the publication ban was not violated.
Irina has turned down every other media request, I believe. Why did she talk to you?
I’m not sure Jesse. It’s a question I’ve been asked many times before regarding other pieces. Who knows why people ever decide to talk?
Were any terms discussed/agreed to, with Irina or Peter Brauti?
No
On to the piece itself…
Most of the questions that follow from here can be answered yourself, with research, or were gathered from various sources, fact checked and I’m not prepared to reveal those sources.
You write: “Yatim had a stiletto switchblade and had tried to slash the woman’s throat.” This is a major new piece of information in this story, which I believe has not been previously reported.
Can you provide any context at all on how you know this?
(no response)
Were you present for the opening statements of the preliminary trial?
I did not attend the preliminary hearing
Did you see the TTC surveillance tape?
(no response)
Did you speak to any of the firsthand witnesses?
(no response)
Are you confident that this is fact, that Yatim’s intent was to slash her throat, or is that an interpretation of his intent?
(no response)
Why was he unable to make contact?
(no response)
This Toronto Star story quoted a man on the streetcar who didn’t feel Yatim was a threat. Did you talk to this witness, or other streetcar passengers who felt differently?
(no response)
You write: “The driver bolted just as Yatim lunged at him with the knife.” Who was your source on this? Did you speak to the driver?
(no response)
Is there any question in your mind as to whether or not Yatim was actually trying to stab the woman and the driver, or just menace and intimidate them?
(no response)
You write: “Behind Forcillo, passengers were talking about what had just happened on the streetcar”. No crowd is visible directly behind Forcillo and several other officers in the videos. Were they directly behind? How far behind?
(no response)
You write: “He could have reached Forcillo in one leap.” Is this your interpretation of the physical circumstance, or someone else’s?
(no response)
You write: “If he jumped out into the crowd with his knife, Forcillo wouldn’t have been able to use his gun without endangering bystanders.” Is this your reasoning/observation, or someone else’s?
(no response)
You write: “Yatim turned away and stepped back into the interior of the streetcar, then appeared to make a decision.” Appeared that way to whom? What was that decision?
(no response)
Why is Julian Falconer not quoted in the piece?
Because I didn’t interview him
Is it accurate to describe your piece as James Forcillo’s side of the story?
I’ll let reader’s decide how they want to see this story. For my part, I wanted to push past the predictably polarized interpretation of what happened and create a broader discussion. I hope I’ve done that.
Reporters tell CANADALAND that Toronto Life’s version of he story is indistinguishable from defense statements made by Const. James Forcillo’s lawyer.
Article Images
Show notes
Actor/writer Matt Watts (The Newsroom, Michael Tuesdays and Thursdays) on “incest” and “hush money” at the CBC, among other problems plaguing our TV industry.
Episode Rundown
01:15 Michael Tuesdays and Thursdays ran on CBC for one season of twelve episodes. You can still watch it online (link)
01:40 Richard Stursberg says a lot of contradictory things. Great review of his book The Tower of Babel (link)
01:52 Big Bang Theory pulls in 3.1 million in Canada and almost 20 million views in the US (link)
02:31 The CBC mandate (link)
03:20 “White people in Ottawa, you can’t get more un-urban” Jesse
03:52 “I was in Newfoundland last summer for a couple of months..they don’t even think of therapy as a thing. They’re just not a neurotic people. They don’t watch Woody Allen films, they don’t get them. It’s not in the nature of the province, it’s such a calm, easy-going people. That someone is so stressed out that they need a doctor to deal with that is completely foreign to them.” Watts
04:24 “No Jews in Newfoundland?” Jesse
“Not any” Watts
Synagogues in Newfoundland (link)
05:04 Matt Watts was the guy intoducing “Sex Bob-Om” in Scott Pilgrim Vs the World. This clip at 1:40 (link)
05:20 Don’t get the Ken Finkleman’s Newsroom confused with the Andrew Sorkin’s Newsroom. Two different shows. The Canadian one ran for 32 episodes (link)
Slings and Arrows was a series based on the inner workings of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. It ran for 18 episodes (link)
07:05 “It’s interesting, he (Stursberg) was so reviled and yet it seemed that people didn’t feel the same way about her (Kirstine Stewart). But her sensibilities seemed to be very similar to his.” -Jesse
“She’s reviled, I don’t think anyone was sorry to see the back of her. Honestly, what I think was the difference between Stursberg and Kirsten was that Stursberg had a vision. It was a largely disagreed with vision, but it was a vision… What Kirsten did that frustrated a lot of people was no one really knew where she stood” – Watts
8:30 The widely shared post from Matt Watts’ Facebook page, May 2013:
THE BELOW WAS POSTED ON MATT WATTS’ FACEBOOK PAGE TODAY. SO “MY INBOX” REFERS TO MATT WATTS’ INBOX.
“This was in my inbox this morning. I’m keeping the sender’s name anonymous. But anyone who has wondered about the goings on in the CBC should look at this. It’s criminal. Literally. What Harper is doing to the CBC is nothing to the shit that Kirstine and Zaib got away with.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hello Matt,
We’ve never met before but I work in XXXXXXX at the CBC and now that KS has thankfully exited the building, I thought you should know that you were totally played by Zaib.
Zaib was not being straight-up when he said his blind pilot was news to him. For over two years, he had a blind pilot deal at CBC but what happened is that he didn’t realize that he, as the producer, had to re-apply to the CMF. As of March 5th when all of this happened, CBC business affairs was frantically in the process of internally re-negotiating his deal. The deal was in place and Zaib knew it.
Perhaps it might surprise you, or not, to know about all the others projects that CBC had with Zaib, all approved while his wife was the boss:
In Little Mosque on the Prairie, Zaib had multiple credits (and multiple salaries!), perhaps the most egregious one was as a paid “creative consultant” which gave Zaib final say in the hiring of writers and actors. And why do you think LMOTP kept getting renewed?
A double-scale development deal for a movie of the week – to star Zaib and to be written by Zaib.
Do you really think Deepa Metha wanted to cast Zaib in Midnight’s Children? Maybe it had something to do with it being a pre-condition of CBC providing a high six-figure license fee.
Zaib Shaik’s own one man company produced the CBC 75th anniversary special, even though he’d never done such a thing before.
Q forced, despite protest, to hire Zaib to guest host.
Ever notice how Zaib was trotted out as a presenter at every awards show CBC ever aired?
And did you hear about the drama series pilot, 19-2 not picked up to series because the producers refused to cast Zaib after they were forced by CBC to audition him for BOTH of the lead roles?
Lately, Zaib has taken to writing to production companies presenting self-created roles for himself. (OK, this is the one that really makes all of us here laugh hysterically!)
And guess what Zaib’s wife’s parting gift to him was? The lead role in the new CBC drama series Best Laid Plans.
The good times continue!”
10:40 “Blind development deal, I was offered one when Michael(Tuesdays and Thursday) was cancelled. It’s ‘here’s some money, come up with something’. – Watts
13:10 The Tweet is here (link)
14:10 Since Stewart left the CBC, Shaikh’s opportunities their seem to have dried up. No worries, he’s Toronto’s new Film Commissioner! (link)
14:34 Don McKeller (link)
16:24 “People (At the CBC) were not happy and it had nothing to do with the budget cuts. She (Kirsten Stewart) had more to do with destroying morale than the cuts did.” Watts
16:39 “It’s (CBC’s) bloated middle management and departments that you don’t know what they’re doing. It’s like any government organization, you look at it and say ‘it could be a lot more efficient’.” Watts
“It’s like being creative in the post office.” Jesse
17:22 “Someone once told me if you want to keep a secret you should give it to the CBC communications department to publicize.” Jesse
“Oh my god, that whole department should just go.” Watts
22:14 Rob Salem piece mourning the loss of the show with Watts (link)
23:05 The John Doyle piece here (link)
23:34 “Orphan Black is a fantastic show, we had Slings and Arrows…I can’t point to my shows without feeling like an asshole.” Watts
“You can do that, don’t be so Canadian.” Jesse
24:38 “If you look at the biggest American shows. The writers room for those shows, there’s usually a Canadian. From Mad Men to all the comedies. There are Canadians in very high places. It’s not for lack of talent here” Jesse
26:02 “There’s no incentive to invest in Canadian programing because they’re probably going to lose money on it. And they don’t own it outright. This is the problem, these networks are just licensing the Canadian rights to these shows. So they don’t own it, so if it sells around the world they don’t see a dime of it.” Watts
25:55 “90% of what a producer does in Canada is trying to get the money to get this thing made.” Watts
“It seems like producers make money by not having a hit show but if you have shows that are in production you take your production fee.” Jesse
27:35 “Television you need a broadcaster before you can commit to any other money..This is what’s frustrating, the public doesn’t seem to be aware this. The privates get public funding for their shows…So when people argue against the CBC as though they’re the only publicly funded television, it’s not entirely true. All television in Canada is publicly funded.” Watts
Excerpt
Actor/writer Matt Watts (The Newsroom, Michael Tuesdays and Thursdays) on “incest” and “hush money” at the CBC, among other problems plaguing our TV industry.
Show notes
Canada produces top animation talent but lousy animation content. Animator Adam Hines, co-host of the Guys With Pencils podcast, on how to save Canadian cartoons.
Episode Rundown
00:31 Norman Mclaren (link)
00:41 That’s right, a Canadian made Ren and Stimpy, John K
00:50 Alias, the creators of the 3D modeling and Animation program Maya. Maya has been used in Game of Thrones, Finding Nemo, Frozen and Monsters inc.
01:08 Rocket Robin Hood is a strange thing (link)
Racoons (link)
01:19 The Guys With Pencils podcast (link)
03:31 I dare you to watch this theme and not want to watch all of that series, it’s all on Netflix just to let you know. (link)
04:09 “The Warner Brothers that you know is dead” Hines quoting Paul Dini. Dini also said that Warner Bros doesn’t like large female fan bases (link)
04:18 “Watching cartoons can be a ton of fun, and then you get into the business side of actually making it… It can feel a bit like a death march.” Hines
05:11 Turbo F.A.S.T (link) made by Titmouse (link)
05:27 “In Canada, we have a fraction of the budget and the schedule to make the shows that we make. You hear that as a student and you’re like ‘ok’, but you don’t really have and point of reference or experience.” Hines
05:51 “When I was working on an American production as an animator I had to do 16 seconds a week.16 seconds of good animation, that’s reasonable. I’ve worked on (Canadian) productions that wanted 80 seconds a week.” Hines
06:32 “ I work for this American company (Titmouse) from my living room, it’s freelance. Yet they trusted me more… in Canada a lot of the productions I’ve worked on, you’re more their hands. It’s basically ‘if I could make this by myself I would but I can’t so I’m going to treat you like an extra pair of arms” Hines
09:21 “I love this industry and I love the people that work in it but sometimes it feels a little sweatshoppy.” Hines
09:53 Steve Wolfhard (link) and his comics here (link) (link)
10:17 Adventure Time is Cartoon Network’s top show (link) (link)
10:40 Spoiler Alert, (link)
10:48 “Remember kids’ movies in the 80’s and early 90’s where it’s for kids but real shit happens?” Hines finding a parallel for the serious content on Adventure Time. Mufasa dying still chokes me up.
10:59 “There was a point when I started in the industry and you’d hear execs go ‘we want the next Spongebob’, now they’re saying they want the next Adventure Time.” Hines
11:17 John K’s book about what Jesse was talking about (link)
12:47 “Is there a Canadian show that’s like- ‘that’s the one where we got it right’?” Jesse
“No” Hines
I thought Reboot was a good show.
12:55 “You look at a show like Adventure Time, that’s so out there that it’s brilliant. That show would get noted to death and get changed (in Canada)” Hines
13:15 “ Who’s the client? Who are we making this for? Who’s the client? Who’s the network?” Hines
13:45 “ The people writing for cartoons in Canada- we have to use this union, and to them this is their Mcdonalds job. They all want to be writing movies.” Hines (link)
14:29 “We have world class game studios in this fucking city, and I’m not even talking about Ubisoft which is this big international thing. I’m talking about Capybara and Drinkbox who are making critically acclaim well-selling games as independent studios.” (link) (link)
18:20 “Animators are actors, I would look in a mirror and and would think how does a character move when they’re angry” Jesse chanelling Chuck Jones
19:25 “Are there old systems in place that back then worked but are fucking us now?” Hines.
Looks like Adam was right (link) (link)
19:42 “Lets talk about Adventure Time, that show is probably horrifying to an exec.” Hines
20:47 “If you’re making a video game, theres no government bureau that has to stamp it as a CanCon video game. There’s also not the middle man of a broadcaster. You make a video game, put it on the internet.” Jesse
23:33 “I know with a lot of Canadian TV production, it’s not about having a hit show, it’s about getting a green light. And you get money to make a show and the profits for the production company lie in making it as cheaply as possible and keeping what’s left over.” Jesse
23:57 “One of the shows I worked on ended after 3 seasons and we were under the impression that ratings were good. Apparently this was a really popular show, as far as the studio goes it was a really popular show for them. But they were more interested in cutting it after 3 seasons and put it into syndication.” Hines
24:43 The episode they talk about is here (link)
25:25 “(Ricardo Curtis) Was saying the difference between America and Canada is that in Canada you have a bunch of safety nets, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the attitude of Canadians could be ‘why bother?’. Whereas in America, they have the attitude of ‘why not?’.” Hines
27:05 “You’re an animator working in television who doesn’t have televsion?” Jesse
“No dude, why bother?” Hines
28:00 More on Robert Khoo (link)
30:45 Frederator Studios (link)
31:15 “Let’s work around these roadblocks that we seem to have to deal with in the Canadian ecosystem” Hines
32:02 “ I wonder if we’re going to hit a point where it’s not really possible to have any original Canadian shit and we’re going to become an outsource…We are referred as ‘overseas’ by the States. We are the equivalent of sending it to China or Korea.” Hines
32:26 “We’re like a banana republic for cheap labour.” Jesse
33:45 “See, I fall into this trap too. You see a part of me is ‘we got to make it better, we got to take risks’. But then I’m like ‘fuck, I gotta pay rent.” Hines
33:55 “The reality kinda kicks you in the dreams.” Hines
34:25 Justin Chan is very talented, eat it Hines (link)
Excerpt
Canada produces top animation talent but lousy animation content. Animator Adam Hines, co-host of the Guys With Pencils podcast, on how to save Canadian cartoons.
Show notes
The Score is a digital-first, globally popular Canadian media company that’s growing each year. So why did its well-loved feature writing team just get the axe? Former features editor Dustin Parkes explains.
Episode Rundown
00:00 The Score lays off its feature writing staff (link)
03:13 “I’ll ask you questions and you’ll have to explain it to me like I’m a very slow four year old because with sports, I don’t really know anything.” Jesse
05:38 “We were like, ‘look at these media dinosaurs going out’ and you know what? In two years, we were the dinosaurs.” Parkes
07:15 “In defending my team throughout the last year and a half, I would look at the shares per article. Ours would always be higher, ours would always be more significant. But you know, we cost more money than the average news editor.” Parkes
7:43 “(a news editor) is what used to be called a blogger. They’re the people who are kind of mining for content, mining online, mining Twitter, social media and looking for the breaking stories.” Parkes
8:40 “By the simple metrics, I could see they were generating more page views and a lot more tap throughs on the app, a lot more views online, a lot more shares online overall.” Parkes
10:30 “They found new ways to share on Facebook that were very effective for them and that kind of cut out the need for us as marketers of their product…Facebook recently changed their algorithm for sharing content and they made sharing content for content providers a lot easier. Using hashtags, and made it more like twitter. And that had a profound effect on our traffic numbers.” Parkes
11:53 “They’re selling $2 million per quarter in ads…it’s up 60% from a year ago. And yet when you consider they’re like the number 3 thing in the world in what they’re doing (Chris corrects- they’re currently #7), and they’ve got an audience of 5 or 6 million- in newspaper terms that’s a pittance. And they’re losing $2.7 million every quarter cause their spending over 5 million a quarter. When the numbers are that big…I’m going to make a wild estimate and guess your whole team cost somewhere around half a million dollars a year?” Jesse
“It’s a lot less than that” Parkes
The Star on The Score’s path to profitability (link)
12:30 “They’ve got a 100 people in there (The Score), 30 of them are journalists? So is everyone else a computer programer?” Jesse
12:40 “It’s a modern company in every way” Parkes
“Is that what a modern company is? Is a modern media company a company without journalists?” Jesse
“In a way, it’s starting to shape up this way” Parkes
14:00 “ That which gains the most traction as far as news content goes is the weird stuff, the wacky stuff in sports…What we as the feature writers offer is something a little bit more than that and it’s kind of for the people who have an unhealthy relationship with sports” Parkes
14:49 “(You wrote) an article about the exploitation of young Dominican kids into baseball, that was as good as any magazine journalism I read recently” Jesse (link)
15:26 http://grantland.com/ (Maybe the only sports website I frequent. -Chris)
16:12 The personal blog post Dustin mentions (link)
19:02 “’The market can’t support this type of journalism, we’ve learned this is true’. Actually, you’re talking about specific people called advertisers, who are obsessed with metrics,eyeballs and clicks. They don’t particularly care about the quality of the content, they just want people seeing their ads, and where does the value lie when people ignore display ads?…are we acting like this is the reality of the world when we haven’t educated advertisers and they don’t understand the difference between one kind of click and another?” Jesse
24:15 Some of Dustin’s World Cup coverage (link)
24:50 “To be really honest it’s sports, I mean it’s so meaningless. Like, maybe tabloid journalism is maybe a little bit under it. In the end it’s completely meaningless, it’s at best a distraction.” Parkes
Excerpt
The Score is a digital-first, globally popular Canadian media company that’s growing each year. So why did its well-loved feature writing team just get the axe? Former features editor Dustin Parkes explains.
