He was a dark-skinned kid on his way to a Lawrence Heights mentoring program, and a Toronto police officer had just punched him to the ground and pulled a gun on him and his friends, warning, “Don’t move or I’ll f------ kill you.”

His account is as harrowing as it is enraging. He had dared to exercise his legal right to walk away when he learned he wasn’t under arrest. By the end of his encounter with Const. Adam Lourenco and Const. Scharnil Pais on Nov. 21, 2011, the beaten teen was facing five charges, including threatening death and assaulting police, and was strip-searched and held overnight for a bail hearing.

He was just 15

But how the tables have turned — he’s no longer that terrified kid of six years ago but a poised and confident 21-year-old university student. And the ones now facing the charges — albeit police act ones — are the two police officers he says unlawfully arrested him, his twin and two friends.

Pais faces one count of unlawful arrest while Lourenco is charged with unlawful arrest as well as two counts of using unreasonable force for allegedly punching the teen and pointing his gun at the four of them. Both officers pleaded not guilty earlier this week.

The alleged victim, who can’t be identified due to a publication ban, told the police disciplinary hearing that they were all heading across the parking lot from their Neptune Ave. housing project to their Pathways to Education meeting at Sir Sanford Fleming high school. Pathways, he explained, was a tutoring and mentoring program designed to keep at-risk youth in school. The four teens — all 15 or 16 — hadn’t taken more than 12 steps before they were stopped by Lourenco and Pais, who’d pulled up in an unmarked black vehicle.

“We have police officers yelling at us when we were just walking,” he recalled.

They were “aggressive and hostile” from the start, he said, announcing that they were investigating a robbery in the area and demanding identification. “I was 15-years-old. I didn’t have ID.” He told Lourenco he lived in the nearby building and he could talk to his mom, but he wasn’t interested, he said.

The teen had recently completed a justice program that taught youth about their rights when interacting with police. He put it into play: He asked if he was under arrest and was told he wasn’t. He asked if he could go and Lourenco, he said, didn’t answer. So he took a step.

He’d pay dearly for that move.

Lourenco began angrily shoving him backwards, he said, isolating him from the others while calling him a “bitch,” “smart ass” and “wannabe thug.” The cop then “decides to randomly punch me in the midsection a couple of times and he gave me a big punch to my head.”

He fell to the ground and his brother and friends tried to come to his aid. They stopped, he said, when Lourenco suddenly pulled his gun, warning them not to move or he’d shoot. “I was very scared. I was shocked.”

He denied spitting at Lourenco or touching him before he was punched.

Meanwhile Pais, he said, turned a blind eye to what was happening and just sat the other boys down. Lourenco holstered his weapon and then handcuffed him, asking if they were too tight. “I said, ‘Yes.’ He makes it even tighter.”

Lourenco, he said, kneed him in the back, scraped his face on the concrete and then did something even more chilling: He cut his own thumb on his utility belt and held it up. “Look,” he allegedly told him, “you just assaulted a police officer.”

The cop then proceeded to wipe the blood on his white vest, he said.

The teen’s serious youth charges were withdrawn months later after security video surfaced from Toronto Housing that showed him being punched by police and a gun pointed at him. That same disturbing footage was played at the tribunal as he calmly narrated what transpired. “The videos helped me a lot,” he said.

The frightening thing is this: Without that evidence, who would have ever believed him over a police officer?

The hearing continues Friday.

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