Darcy Allan Sheppard, 1975-2009

 Fifteen years ago, on August 31 2009, Darcy Allan Sheppard encountered Michael Bryant on the most fashionable stretch of Bloor Street, between University Avenue to the west and Yonge Street to the east. What happened then depends on who you ask; according to at least one witness, Michael Bryant struck Darcy Sheppard with the front bumper of his car either deliberately or negligently, and then without trying to see if the person he had hit was all right as the law requires, had attempted to make off. At this point, Darcy Sheppard had latched onto the car, possibly to demand Mr Bryant live up to his responsibilities. Michael Bryant apparently responded by driving rapidly along the wrong side of Bloor Street attempting to shake him off. In the course of this action, Bryant drove so close to the street furniture he struck Darcy Sheppard against the street furniture, fatally injuring him.

After that, it was all over for Michael Bryant but the high priced defence lawyers, the PR firm, and the concerted campaign to make Darcy Sheppard the villain of the piece. It was all over for Darcy Sheppard's family, friends, colleagues, and fellow cyclists but the memorials. It was at the memorial ride for Darcy Sheppard I first saw the strength in the collective anger and determination in the cycling community. 

In the years since, as more information has emerged about the events of that night, both the determination to keep the memory of Darcy Sheppard alive and the determination to seek justice and ensure this never happens again remain as strong as ever. 

I have written before of the poisonous conviction that people whom our society abuses have no right to their anger. That view was on full display in the weeks and months following Darcy Sheppard's death. The special prosecutor failed to bring the case of Darcy Sheppard's killing before a court partly because he felt, or believed a jury would feel, that Darcy Sheppard's anger justified Michael Bryant's fears. It seems the prosecution accepted those fears gave him license to do anything he chose, even if it meant a course of action that ended in battering a human being to death.

Darcy Sheppard suffered from injustices beginning before he was born, traumas inflicted on his Indigenous ancestors over a century before he was conceived. He made a life in the hard scrabble world of Toronto Bike couriers, continually faced with the infuriating arrogance of the motoring culture in this city. He had more reason for anger than most of us. In the end, his anger almost certainly did not get him killed, but it did, in the minds of too many people in this city, justify his death. 

The news today did not cover the gathering of those who came together to mark the fifteenth anniversary of Darcy Sheppard's killing. It's hard to blame them, since two more cyclists died today in Ontario: a twenty-six year old woman, struck at the western edge of Toronto, and a fourteen year old girl in Long Sault at the eastern edge of the province. The lack of coverage did not affect the turnout.

Those of us with the privilege of being angry without having our anger used to justify our deaths are still here. We are not going to forget, and we are not going away. 

In the Lakota words that might have been familiar to Darcy Sheppard's plains ancestors, Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ - All My Relations.