Memorial ceremony held for cyclist killed in high-profile altercation

TORONTO - The father of a cyclist killed during an altercation on the streets of Toronto joined aboriginal leaders in smoking a peace pipe during a traditional ceremony to commemorate his son.
About 50 people gathered in a hall at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto on Monday afternoon to pay respects to 33-year-old Darcy Allan Sheppard.
Sheppard died after he was seen hanging onto the side of a convertible sports car following an altercation with the driver last Monday night.
Witnesses said Sheppard slammed into a mail box before falling off the vehicle.
Former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant is charged with criminal negligence causing death and dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death. He is due in court next month, but insists he is innocent in the charges he faces.
Members of Toronto's aboriginal community beat a drum, sang traditional songs, lit sage and tobacco and passed around a peace pipe in a ceremony to mark Sheppard's passage to the spiritual world.
Sheppard's girlfriend, Misty Bailey, swayed in time with the rhythm of the drums and mouthed the words of traditional songs.
She said that she has been depressed since learning of her boyfriend's death just after he left her house.
Bailey has said police had refused to take Sheppard home earlier that night when he showed up drunk at her door, but police say the cyclist showed no signs of intoxication.
"I'm not just gonna sit at home and be isolated, the depression sets in, but you know," she said.
Sheppard, who is of Cree, Metis and Ojibwa heritage, was remembered as a friendly, car-hating, troubled and generous character with a lust for life.
Ryan Walsh, who was Sheppard's case worker at Aboriginal Legal Services, was the first of three speakers who reflected on their warm, but sometimes wild loved one.
He spoke of obstacles Sheppard overcame in his life, including his troubled youth and criminal history.
"He was always willing to work on himself, always willing to try," Walsh said.
Brian Harris, a fellow bike courier recalled how Sheppard hated how people drove cars and would stop to fix someone's tail light on a whim.
"Allan is more of a free spirit (now) than he ever has been," he said of his colleague.
Sheppard's aunt, Sylvia Segal, read a message from the cyclist's father, Allan Sheppard Sr., who flew from Alberta to collect his son's body and return it to Edmonton, where his son was raised.
The father's message acknowledged his son's tumultuous past, speaking of his son's teen years spent in a secure treatment facility, his time as a squeegee guy in Toronto, and the time he asked his father for money, only to give it to a friend sleeping on the street and dying of AIDS.
Sheppard said he visited Toronto twice a year for the past six years, and the time spent with his son "always depended on the state of relations between him and whatever demon he was confronting at the time."
Sheppard also urged his son's friends and supporters to "accept with grace whatever outcome emerges," in Bryant's trial.