The Toronto constable who Tasered a man who was handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser has been demoted to a lower rank after pleading guilty to professional misconduct earlier this month.

“I would like to apologize to the police service for my actions,” said Const. Ryan Kotzer, after the tribunal hearing officer demoted him from first- to second-class constable for six months.

Kotzer also thanked the tribunal for its fairness.

The hearing officer, Supt. Riyaz Hussein, said there was a public interest in ensuring Kotzer was held accountable for his “unwarranted” use of force. He said he weighed his decision to ensure Kotzer experienced consequences for his actions, while acknowledging that’s he’s taken responsibility through an early guilty plea.

Last month, Kotzer — a constable at downtown 51 Division — admitted he’d used excessive force when he deployed his Taser on a man he was transporting to a temporary homeless shelter on Jan. 27, 2019.

The man had been kicking at the cruiser window but at the time he was Tasered, he was restrained and not resisting.

Kotzer used his conducted energy weapon (CEW) in “drive stun” mode, meaning it was placed directly on the man — an use that causes pain but not the incapacitation or shock that comes from the full deployment of wired probes.

Provincial standards and Toronto police procedure state that such a weapon can only be deployed or used in “drive stun” mode when the person is assaultive. The drive stun mode can only be used to gain control of someone who is at risk of causing harm, not simply to gain compliance of someone who is only resisting, according to a recent report to the Toronto police board.

The incident was captured on in-car camera, but the video was not made an exhibit at the tribunal.

“Police Const. Kotzer acknowledges that in the circumstances his use of the CEW amounted to excessive force,” read an agreed statement of fact filed at the tribunal in July, adding he had “no justification.”

In February 2018, the Toronto police board voted to expand the number of Tasers distributed to Toronto police, specifically, front line officers like constables. Before that decision, the weapons were mainly carried by sergeants, who are not often the first ones on the scene.

Kotzer had been answering a call for “disorderlies” at a shelter on George St., where he arrested the man, who is not identified in tribunal documents.

The man was handcuffed and place in the cruiser to be transferred to a shelter on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition. As they drove, the man became upset and began kicking the window. Kotzer stopped the car, opened the rear driver’s side door while his partner opened the other back door.

Kotzer said he Tasered the man shortly after because he “feared for the safety of his partner” but tribunal documents state that by then the man was compliant and was “under control.”

Separate from the incident, Kotzer is named in a recent complaint to Ontario’s Human Rights Tribunal alleging sexual harassment and culture of racism and misogyny within 51 division.

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Toronto police Const. Firouzeh (Effy) Zarabi-Majd alleges that Kotzer was one of two male officers who came onto her in the fall of 2014, then threatened to spread false rumours about her if she refused to have sex with them. According to her claim, Zarabi-Majd alleges Kotzer told her: “OK just show us your tits then.”

Defence lawyer Gary Clewley said Kotzer denies the allegations in Zarabi-Majd’s claim.