All of my views on this are based on grainy video footage and 3rd-hand accounts; I certainly wouldn't want to be on Bryant's jury.
My take on it is that Bryant probably could have de-escalated the situation at some point, but that ultimately a court will determine that Darcy Sheppard's own recklessness was the greatest single contributing factor in his death.
But even if that weren't the case, I believe that Toronto cops generally dislike cyclists, poor people, crazy people, first nations people and people with criminal records, at least relative to non-cyclists, etc. With five strikes against him and with presumably credible accounts about his behaviour before and during the incident that led to his death, I think it is remarkable that the investigation yielded charges at all. I can only surmise that, because Bryant is who he is, the police felt compelled to charge him but fully expect him not to be convicted.
Again, I wasn't there and I don't "know" what happened. But that's my feeling about how it will all turn out.
Also, it is my hunch that Ogilvy would not have hired him without reaching the same conclusion.
Bryant will make a political comeback. Unfortunately, I bet he will appeal to a large segment of the knuckle-dragging suburbanites who long for their own chance to kill an uppity cyclist.
