Toronto police flatly reject criticism by former Attorney General Michael Bryant that police rushed to judgment when they charged him in the death of a bicycle courier in 2009.

Darcy Allan Sheppard had latched on to the side of Bryant’s convertible on Aug. 31, 2009, and was thrown onto Bloor St. He died of his injuries.

Bryant was charged with dangerous driving causing death and criminal negligence causing death. Those charges were later withdrawn when it was determined that the cyclist was the aggressor.

Bryant, whose book 28 Seconds about the life-changing incident has just been published, told the CBC in an interview Monday that police charged him too quickly, before all the evidence was in.

“He is wrong,” police spokesman Mark Pugash protested.

He added that he is “astonished” Bryant waited three years to make these claims, and do it while pitching a book about the fatal evening.

Bryant told the CBC’s Amanda Lang that he was surprised he was arrested when he felt like the victim.

“And I still kept thinking, I don’t get it,” Bryant told Lang. “Like I tried to get away from an attack and you’re arresting me?”

He went on to say he believed police suspected at first that it was a road-rage incident.

“That was their assumption, I guess,” Bryant said. “Because they didn’t have the evidence yet and, as it turns out, they never got the evidence to support that theory. But they charged me with that right away anyways.”

He told the CBC that he understood from conversations with other prosecutors, defence counsel and police that it usually takes days or weeks to get reports back before charges are laid.

Police spokesman Pugash said police went to great lengths to make sure this was a proper investigation.

“We knew from the second this investigation started that because Mr. Bryant was involved this was going to be looked at with a microscope. That’s why we made sure every ‘i’ was dotted and every ‘t’ was crossed.”

Pugash said efforts were made to get a Crown attorney from outside the province (British Columbia) to prosecute the case so there would be “no suggestion of any improper pressure on Crowns.”

Pugash questioned why, if Bryant had issues with the way police investigated the matter, his lawyers haven’t made the same claims.

“He had a team of very aggressive, very good lawyers whose job it is to jump on anything that will help their client, and we haven’t heard anything about this (until now),” Pugash said. “If he had all these concerns, why has he been quiet for the last three years? Why have his lawyers not raised a single one of these concerns?”

The police spokesman questioned the timing of the comments.

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“The first time we hear about this is when he is publishing a book,” Pugash told the Star. “I think people are entitled to a certain degree of skepticism.”

Bryant was unavailable for comment Tuesday.