Video shows Toronto police swarming man during trespassing arrest

Toronto police officers swarmed, kicked, punched and elbowed a man while arresting him for allegedly trespassing downtown on Tuesday, video obtained by CBC Toronto shows.

At first, the video shows two police officers struggling to subdue a man in an alley. One officer elbows the man in the back repeatedly, while the other can be seen holding him from behind.

Another officer comes into frame and punches the man in the chest and back. More officers can be seen arriving, swarming the man as the camera captures him being taken to the ground, kicked and handcuffed.

By the end of the video, more than a dozen officers are visible on the scene.

"It seemed so excessive," said Star Spider, the bystander who captured the video near Isabella and Church streets. 

Spider told CBC Toronto she's considering filing an official complaint with the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency, formerly the OIPRD — though experts are divided about whether the interaction constitutes police brutality, and Toronto police say the man was physically resisting arrest and uninjured.

Spider says she was grabbing a Bike Share ride across the street Tuesday afternoon, when she saw two police officers interacting with a man who was calling for help and started filming.

Throughout the video, the man pleads for help as the voices of bystanders are heard off-screen asking police what's happening and pleading for them to ease up on the man.

"I was using lots of expletives because I couldn't really believe what I was seeing," Spider said in an interview Wednesday.

After the arrest, Spider said she could see blood coming from the man's head. Police later said in an email the man was not seriously injured and required no medical attention.

Police were responding to multiple complaints of trespassing from property management of a building near the corner of Isabella and Church streets, Toronto police spokesperson Stephanie Sayer said in an email. 

Officers were trying to remove the accused from the property and arrest him, she said. When the man physically resisted, the officers requested assistance, she said. 

There was a high police presence in the area, Sayer said. So several officers responded to the call in a short time, until over a dozen officers were on scene.

"When an officer broadcasts 'officer needs assistance,' nearby officers respond quickly, as they have no other information other than the officer needs help," she said.