TORONTO -- A preliminary hearing starts Tuesday for a police officer charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of a teenager on a Toronto streetcar last summer.
The hearing for Const. James Forcillo, 30, will determine if there's enough evidence to go to trial.
Sammy Yatim was shot and killed on an empty streetcar (on Dundas Street West near Bathurst Street) on July 27.
The incident was captured on surveillance and cellphone video on which nine shots can be heard following shouts for the 18-year-old Yatim to drop a knife.
Forcillo, who is free on $510,000 bail, has been suspended with pay.
A charge of discreditable conduct against him under the Police Services Act has been put on hold until the end of the criminal case.
Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack says the officer is devastated by what happened.
"This is a very traumatic incident, not only for the Yatim family but also for Officer Forcillo," he said outside court Tuesday.
"We think that the evidence is going to present a way more fulsome and quite a different picture than was originally presented the night that this happened."
The preliminary hearing is scheduled to run through May 9 and then continue from June 16 to 20.
