SIU team probes incident outside west-end 7-Eleven

ANDREW PALAMARCHUK PHOTO

FIGHT FOR LIFE: Paramedics try to revive Otto Vass in the parking lot outside a west-end 7-Eleven. Witnesses said the man was beaten by police after being removed from the store after a disturbance.

The man who died in a 7-Eleven parking lot early yesterday was beaten by police, witnesses say.

Two witnesses who watched the incident from a porch across the street told The Star that police pinned the 55-year-old man near the corner of College St. and Lansdowne Ave. and struck him repeatedly with a baton, fists and feet. Neighbours identified him as Otto Vass, a large man with a history of mental problems.

The special investigations unit, the provincial agency that probes serious injuries or deaths involving police, will examine the actions of four subject officers, using evidence from eight witness officers, said spokesperson Gail Scala.

No one else is saying anything officially about the incident, which a store employee said began when Vass got into an argument with some younger men in the store.

``They (the police) were beating him worse than an animal,'' said Amir Hameed, 23, a neighbour who saw the incident. ``He wasn't fighting back at all.''

Because the case is now being handled by the SIU, Toronto police said little information could be released.

``We removed a man from the store,'' Sergeant Jim Muscat said. ``Paramedics pronounced him dead a short time later.''

Scala wouldn't comment on the eyewitnesses' version of events.

``I heard the rumours, but I don't know whether they're true or not,'' said Scala.

An autopsy is planned for today.

Police said two officers were called to assist at the west-end 7-Eleven before 1 a.m. yesterday.

While the man's name wasn't released, neighbours identified the victim as Otto Vass, a father of five, twice married, and the owner of a dilapidated shop that sells used furniture and appliances just a few doors down from the convenience store.

Neighbours described Vass as emotionally unstable. In 1985, he pleaded guilty to setting fire to a rental property he owned in an attempt to scare off tenants. Police had originally charged him with attempted murder.

According to a store employee who was reluctant to give details, police were originally called to the convenience store because Vass was arguing with some younger men inside.

Bystanders said magazine racks had been toppled in the commotion.

When police arrived at the store, Hameed was sitting near his apartment window with his roommate Asim Abbasi, 30. The friends watched from roughly 40 metres away as the officers calmly walked a man, wearing shorts and an unbuttoned shirt, out of the store along with a female clerk who soon went back inside.

Abbasi said the officers appeared to be talking calmly with the man when one officer suddenly shoved the man to the ground.

``I don't know what made the officers furious,'' said Abbasi, who was out of earshot.

``They were just talking in a friendly manner and suddenly started beating him,'' said Hameed, who was likewise too distant to hear the exchange of words.

After watching from the window, the two witnesses climbed out onto the porch for a better view of the scene.

Hameed said one officer held the man down and punched him in the face while the other hit him on the legs with a baton.

Then the first officer stood up and began kicking the man while the second continued hitting him with the baton, Hameed said, adding that most of the blows were aimed at the victim's lower torso or legs.

The attack lasted about four to five minutes, the witnesses said.

Hameed said the blows continued for roughly 30 seconds after two more officers arrived on the scene. The new officers held the man down while the two original officers kept hitting him, he said.

``He was just screaming due to the pain,'' Hameed said. ``He never hit an officer - they never gave him a chance, and he never tried to.''

The officers stopped attacking when the man stopped moving, the witnesses said. When paramedics arrived, they performed CPR and defibrilation.

Resident Tony Wright said he was on his way home yesterday morning when he saw Vass lying on the ground, receiving CPR from emergency staff. He said the large man was shirtless and his knees and legs were cut and bloodied.

Paramedics pronounced Vass dead shortly afterward.

``I don't think they (the officers) meant to kill him,'' Abbasi said.

The two witnesses, recent refugees from Pakistan, said they were shaken and unable to sleep that night.

``I'm kind of afraid of the police,'' said Hameed, after being interviewed by SIU investigators. ``In civilized countries, we don't do that.''

Another eyewitness, who didn't give her name but was also interviewed by the SIU, said she was too exhausted to talk.

``I didn't see what started it,'' she said. ``I just saw the beating.''

Members of the SIU were called around 2:30 a.m., said lead investigator Mike MacKinnon.

The five investigators, including one forensic identification technician, spent yesterday morning dusting for fingerprints and collecting evidence. They picked up a pair of eyeglasses near the body, about three metres from the convenience store's door, and seized a VCR and videotape from a security camera inside the store.

Sandy Da Silva, 23, who lives across from Vass' junk shop and attended school with Vass' three daughters, said she often saw people at the shop exchanging money for packages that she suspected contained illegal drugs.

Gabriella Pavao, a nurse at Toronto General Hospital who lives beside the junk shop with her young children, said she was worried by the crowd that loitered next door.

``I'd see homeless people, mostly men, and they'd have nothing else to do,'' Pavao said. ``He hung around a lot of people who were doing illegal stuff, I guess.''

Vass was well-known in the neighbourhood for his verbal outbursts and volatility.

``We were a bit concerned,'' Pavao said. ``He was just very emotionally unstable.''

``He takes some medication and when he doesn't take it he goes really mental,'' Da Silva said.

``He'd argue with the neighbours, fight with them.''

Neighbours recently persuaded the Toronto Humane Society to take Vass' German shepherd.

``He didn't feed the dog, didn't take it for walks, and tied it to a short leash outside,'' Da Silva said.

Da Silva said she last saw Vass drinking with other men and enjoying a barbeque on his patio just hours before he died.

Although he lived in Mississauga, Da Silva said, Vass had been sleeping at his shop recently.

Vass was a former real estate agent and owned several properties around Toronto, said Firoz Jamal, who had been his tenant and now owns a drycleaning business nearby.

``He was very kind,'' Jamal said. ``He would go out of his way to help somebody. He would not hurt anybody.''

A receptionist for Century 21 Kingsbury Real Estate on Eglinton Ave. W in Mississauga recalled his name, but couldn't remember when he last worked out of that office.

Vass' friend, local landlord Joe Antonacci, 54, said Vass was harmless. ``I never saw him as a violent man,'' he said.

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