Michael Bryant to write book.

Catchfire, I read a blog post recently that has a great word for what you're describing (where every other character in a story is present merely as a character development point for the protagonist). 

It's "manpain".  Usually it's women who contribute to manpain in movies by being one-dimensional (or sometimes two, at most) people whose sole purpose is to give the main character a chance to develop his character through manpain.

She outlines three ways that manpain is portrayed.  The first is the "no one's pain is greater than mine".  The second is "the weight of the world is on my shoulders".  The third is "women in refrigerators" - that is, a significant woman dies and there is no focus on the woman's life, she is simply a vehicle for his manpain, and her death is seen entirely through his reaction to it.

I think what you're describing above is manpain situation #3 although Sheppard is not a woman. However, it works, because, like the portrayal of women in popular culture, other marginalized groups are also used the same way, and I would say that Sheppard's class and mental health issues were marginalizing factors.

Anyhow, it's a long blog post but excellent, and at times, wickedly funny.  I highly recommend reading it, and thinking about this book in that context.

P.S. After reading the three types of manpain, I think her #1 type also fits:

Thank goodness Michael Bryant was there to make sure Sheppard never frightened anyone again.

Who needs Navigator when you have former cops lining up to demonize victims for free? That is a very comprehensive character assassination (via a non-contextualized separate incident) you've delivered us, RWB. Vive Michael Bryant!

@Michelle I like that term, "Manpain." It's a tried and true strategy, and I think it applies, like you say, equally to colonized peoples and persons of colour. Kind of like in Avatar when the entire enslavement and oppression of a quasi-native civilization (not to mention disability) is completely deployed for the existential crisis and individual growth of an awesome white dude.

Hi Mark. I think you misread the intent of my post. Sheppard had a history of climbing on cars and assaulting drivers. If BMW guy had driven off and killed Sheppard no one would have cared, certainly not the big media. But because Bryant was involved it became THE story. So in a sense it IS all about Bryant and not Sheppard.

Who's Mark?

See, this is how the media (like the Star story) manipulates stories and narratives. I bet that Sheppard, his friends and family would have "cared" that he got killed by a slightly less famous rich person. You would do well to listen to lagatta's helpful exposé of car culture, its insidiousness and its addictiveness. It seems so natural that when one marginalized person speaks out against the blasé luxury car drivers who put his life at risk every single day, he is "obviously" crazy, disturbed or otherwise non-normative.

See how the Star story frames the accident? Two equal forces coming together, with only Sheppard's mental illness and imminent rage differentiating them. How a massive luxury auto and a squishy human riding a small two-wheel contration can be on equal footing is beyond me. But car culture convinces us that it is so.

Michelle and Lagotta, I don't post here often anymore, but it's nice to see you again!

I'm just venting here, this has reopened old wounds, so forgive me for old arguments.

Bryant did not know Darcy, and knew nothing about him that night. If Darcy had a history of drinking or alcohol, this did not affect Bryant's choices and behaviour toward Darcy that night. It keeps getting brought up how Darcy was drunk, and that he was often beligerant with drivers. This is implying that Darcy brought this on himself, and that Bryant was not just innocent, but a completely passive non-participant.

Bicycle rights: When a cyclist is stopped at a light with feet down, they are completely equivalent to a pedestrian. This was not a collision between two vehicles, this was a person struck down by a car. It was not an equal responsibility here; Bryant was responsible for a ton of metal hitting Darcy and knocking him to the ground.

The stalled car: Bryant claimes his Saab stalled and then lurched forward. If he restarted the car with the clutch engaged and in gear while stopped behind a cyclist, this was clearly "Dangerous Driving", a Criminal Code offense. I frankly suspect that the car was not stalled, it did not lurch, but that Bryant knocked Darcy down purposefully. That is just my opinion based on Bryant's own voice, the reports of witnesses, and views of the security camera footage. I may very well be wrong, but if I am then a Criminal Code charge of dangerous driving should have been the minimum here.

Did Bryant run Darcy down on purpose: Why I believe this, was because it is admitted by Bryant that Darcy and he had been aggressively driving/riding beside each other for some time previous. He had been aware that Darcy was riding near him, expected him on the right and surprised that Darcy came past on his right. I do not believe that the Saab was stalled, but even if so, that Bryant struck Darcy down was not accidental.

Darcy was knocked down: The appointed prosecutor Peck ignores this part of the incident. Darcy was knocked to the ground; in Bryant's words, hard enough to go over the hood of the car and hit the windshield, his bike going under the car. This was a serious hit. Bryant did not stop, he did not seek to find out if Darcy was injured, he started to drive off. Bryant at this point had nothing to fear except the publicity and possible criminal charge. Darcy had not at this point done anything criminal or threatening to Bryant.

Bryant drives off: Darcy, rightly or wrongly, believes that he was just assaulted, purposefully stuck by a vehicle, and the driver is leaving the scene. Darcy is hurt, scared, and angry. Just like any other reasonable person would be in this circumstance. Anyone in this circumstance, if they were not hurt so much that they couldn't walk, would approach the driver of the car, upset and angry. Darcy had every right to feel angry. Nothing he did up to that point was unreasonable or illegal. Bryant claims he drove off in fear, but at this point he had hit someone, hard enough for them to hit his windshield.

Witness reports: That Bryant was yelling angrily at Darcy when they were stopped at the light, before he hit Darcy. Darcy had every reason to believe he had been hit on purpose. Witness reports that the car took off at between 60-100 kph. Here is where Peck is obviously either clearly mistaken or blatently covering for Bryant. Peck states that the police police investigation showed that the car reached an average of 40 kph, and therefore the the witness reports were wrong. Peck is wrong, either by his own confusion or purpose. The car started from 0 kph. An average speed, estimated by the police, of 40 kph, would mean that that car had to have achieve a much higher speed. That is to say, an average of 0 and 80 would be 40. Peck discounts witness testimony over this (according to his own words at the press conference). He ignores Bryant's angry yelling at Darcy prior to striking him down, and does not investigate why Bryant had the clutch engage when he allegedly restarted the car.

Darcy was not always an easy going person. He drank too much. However he did nothing that night that made him deserve to be smeared against a postal box. He also did nothing that deserved to be demonized by numerous articles repeatedly in the press.

Michael Bryant is a free man, he has a secure professional position and a six-figure salary. He insists he did nothing wrong that night, he sees nothing to feel remorse for. It was all the fault of his stalled engine and Darcy's temper. But not only that, he just can't leave it alone. He needs to keep portraying himself as the victim and Darcy as the raging bull. He can't just drop it, count his blessings, and get on with his life.

It's not enough that Darcy was brutally killed that night, he must continue to be demonized in the press even years later.

I ride that same stretch of Bloor frequently and it's an absolute nightmare. The "bike lane" in place is a complete joke as it consists of nothing more than pain on the ground which drivers completely ignore. Cars (especially taxis) are always pulling into the bike lane to drop people off, pick people up, etc. Riding a bike there is a really scary experience. 

Yes, there are a lot of cyclists who give the rest of us a bad name and bike aggressively but car vs. bike is hardly a fair fight and cyclists are really taking their lives in their hands on Bloor

I caught him on The National last night. He just seemed like such a phony. I'm sure he spent all day rehearsing with his public relations team.

Disgusting and shameful.

self-delete.  Dupe post.

I found that Catchfire succinctly caught your intention.

As for Brachina's "its the guys own fault he's dead" statement, that's a cold, and indeed, disgusting thing to say.

Seconded. 

Some interesting videos of the crime scene and of witness reports here.