TORONTO

It all started with a knock, knock on the door.

The blood stains that remain from where his head hit his front walkway are the result of what happened next.

It looks like either two plainclothes cops laid a severe beating on a Toronto dad’s face or the man’s face did a number on the police’s fists.

The question today is was the beat-down James “Ross” Kennedy took from Toronto Police on his own front step justified?

And did it have to happen in front his tiny now “traumatized” children?

When the dust settled, 25-year-old Kennedy was the one with a body full of contusions, cuts, bruises, sore ribs and a concussion — as well as finding himself before the courts charged with two counts of assaulting police.

It was alarming to see the kind of damage to his face, his bloodshot eyes, from which he says he is having difficulty seeing. Throw in that it appears police may have been at the wrong house, and it at the very least deserves an impartial investigation.

“I felt like they tried to kill me,” said Kennedy, who you can see yourself in a video on torontosun.com. “They choked the very last bit of breath out of me.”

It all started after 10 a.m. on Saturday with a knock at landscaper Kennedy’s rented Flax Garden Way townhouse, in the city's north end.

“It was the Jehovah Witnesses,” said Kennedy’s 28-year-old partner Shannon Morales, who is also mother of their two children, daughters Brooklyn, 3, and one-year-old Caliya.

About five minutes later, she said, there was another knock-knock-who’s-there scenario.

”The knocks were louder and I joked, they really must want us to pray.”

When she answered the door there were two different men there.

“They looked sketchy and I knew they were not the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” said Morales. “They were yelling ‘where’s Elizabeth, where’s Elizabeth. They were trying to get into the house. I thought they might have been drug dealers.”

Kennedy said, “they were very aggressive” and “I thought they were looking for money.”

He said he tried to explain “there is no Elizabeth here” and then stepped out to point out the superintendent’s townhouse.

“They got up in my face and then I told them to leave,” he said. “They jumped me, smashed me against the wall and starting beating me.”

Morales said she heard them saying “stop resisting, stop resisting.” She said she started screaming “get off him, you are killing him.”

She added the unknown men were calling her “stupid” and “were laughing at me.”

She called 911 and told the men she had called the police.

“That’s when they said ‘we are the police.’”

A neighbour also called 911.

“I saw two men beating up a man,” said Denise Thornington. “The one guy had his knee to the back of his neck. I had no idea they were police.”

It does seems odd for people to call the police on the police.

What really happened here?

Toronto Police spokesman Tony Vella said the real story is that “two plainclothes officers from 43 Division identified themselves and that the accused was aggressive and hostile and charged the officers, who sustained minor injuries.” Vella said the situation was so dire, “they had to call for additional back-up” and that the officers displayed their badges and produced “a warrant” for the arrest for a person believed to be at this house.

Maybe somebody could review those 911 calls and see what exactly was said?

And interview the coppers to get their side?

“If they had told me they were police I would have helped them,” insists Kennedy, who said he has no criminal record. “The whole thing is disgusting and makes one not trust police anymore. I was just trying to protect my family.”

Instead he spent the day in a holding cell at 31 Division where after “throwing up” and “passing out” a quick-thinking staff sergeant took him to the Humber River Regional Hospital, which said on a report that he had suffered a “concussion.” He said a paramedic wanted to take him to hospital immediately but “the police said, no, he’s going to jail.”

He said he was not treated or given a phone call until 5 p.m. Is this so? Why was this man with such clear damage, not treated? And was the SIU called by TPS?

Two SIU investigators, called by Morales, were at the home Monday and taking notes.

Meanwhile, if anybody knows where to find ‘Elizabeth’ this couple would prefer someone call rather than knock.