Luminato's Out the Window explores the grey areas of the Otto Vass case.Syrus Marcus Ware/Luminato
At 12:50 a.m. on Aug. 9, 2000, two police officers confronted Otto Vass inside a Toronto 7-Eleven.
The tragedy that unfolded over the next eleven minutes would alter the lives of everyone who witnessed it and form another sad chapter in the evolving story of how Toronto’s police engage with the city’s mentally ill.
Nearly two decades have passed since Mr. Vass followed the officer out of the 7-Eleven and toward an untimely death. Yet the questions his case raised around the policing of mental illness remain just as pressing today, re-emerging each time a Sammy Yatim or Andrew Loku or Michael Eligon falls to police violence.
Out the Window, opening on June 19 as part of Luminato, rehashes the circumstances of Mr. Vass’s death in a fine-grained detail that could only have come from someone involved in the case.
Writer and actor Liza Balkan watched from a fifth-floor apartment that sticky summer night as officers swarmed Mr. Vass. “I still have very specific images and pictures in my head that I think are burned there forever of Mr. Vass and positions of his body,” she said. “The violence that I witnessed with the four officers, there are very specific pictures and a blur of emotional memory as well.”
A father of five, Mr. Vass had dealt with serious mental illness his entire life. On this night, he abandoned his car because he thought it smelled like napalm, sucker-punched someone in the 7-Eleven parking lot and followed customers around the convenience store until staff called police.
On store security footage, Mr. Vass appeared cordial with the officers at first. Once outside, he punched one of the constables in the face, sparking a full-on brawl. Two more officers joined the fray and rained down blows on him.
By 1:01 a.m., Mr. Vass’s body was limp and his skin blue.
For the activists who protested in the ensuing days, it was a clear-cut example of police brutality.
One of those activists was Syrus Marcus Ware, a visual artist and co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto. Mr. Ware appears in the production as a live visual artist, creating large-scale portraits of Mr. Vass and other victims of police violence on stage as the action unfurls around him.
“When Otto was killed, it really rocked a lot of people,” Mr. Ware said. “There was something about killing with your bare hands that seemed particularly brutal, especially thinking about it today in light of all the shooting fatalities we’ve seen.”
With time and lawyers came complication. The officers testified at their manslaughter trial that Mr. Vass could not be subdued and had tried to reach for one of their side-arms. They feared for their lives.
A pathologist theorized that Mr. Vass had died with a fat embolism from one of his legs lodged in his lungs. But was it dislodged by the beating, or his state of excited delirium?
The four officers were acquitted of manslaughter.
While writing Out the Window, Ms. Balkan gathered transcripts and other records from the trial and a 2006 coroner’s inquest, lending the show an air of objectivity that challenges pro-cop and activist factions to meet in the middle.
“In this play nothing is simple,” Mr. Ware said. “I’ve heard the verbatim transcripts now hundreds and hundreds of times through the rehearsal. More and more it’s given a personality to these officers in a way that’s made me very empathetic. I know that sounds weird to say but it’s complicated my own understanding of these issues.”
In the third act, the production breaks conventions and turns into a discussion about contemporary policing issues in the city.
Retired deputy chief Mike Federico will sit on a postshow panel on June 23. But they don’t expect any current police brass to attend.
“We’ve tried,” Ms. Balkan said. “We’ve certainly tried to have their voice for the panel, but Mike Federico is the only who’s said ‘yes.’ It’s just disappointing. I see this as an opportunity to create dialogue, to be present and it’s a shame.”
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect title for Syrus Marcus Ware, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto. It also incorrectly said the show’s third act was a panel discussion, which is actually happening after the show on June 23. This version has been corrected.