Toronto police say the sky is falling -- Is the CBC their Chicken Little?

As 2018 dawns -- an election year in Toronto and Ontario -- Toronto police officers and their "union" appear to be launching a media offensive to counter attempts to modernize the police force and to reign in outrageously out-of-control spending on the force (which now tops a billion dollars a year in the city). While unstated a secondary goal is clearly to try to get Toronto's residents and media to rally around a force hurt by allegations of abuse and systemic racism with incidents like the Sammy Yatim killing, the seeming attempts to cover-up the involvement of a Toronto police officer in the beating of Dafonte Miller and the grossly abusive and racist practice of "carding".

The ramping up of this offensive was seen very clearly at the end of this week with CBC radio and news airing two reports based on anonymous sources claiming that Toronto police are now understaffed to the extent that they are in grave personal danger as individual officers and that they are not able to properly respond to emergency calls. One was from the wife of an officer apparently worried about her husband and the other was a long interview by radio host Matt Galloway with a veteran officer (a staff sergeant) who made a variety of claims also along these lines.

While the use of anonymous sources is a time-honoured journalistic tradition that allows people to speak out with less fear of reprisal, the assertions in these two reports, most especially the interview with the veteran officer, were not challenged in ways that left this listener scratching his head.

The staff sergeant, for example, provided (details absent) only very anecdotal evidence such as claiming they were unable to respond to a break-in and then hyperbolically claimed that the Toronto police would be unable to respond to a mass shooting like the Danzig shooting a few years ago and further implied that the city might have to eventually turn to the military to keep the streets safe!

That is a pretty gigantic rhetorical leap that was based on no actual numbers or serious evidence and that Galloway allowed to go basically unchallenged. I can provide personal examples from years ago, well before any modernization was underway, of police taking a very long time to respond to break-ins (which are not always the top priority) including one involving a close friend where the suspect was on sight for a very significant amount of time at his neighbour's house and he had to personally intervene to prevent the suspect's escape when police failed to arrive. Should I have conflated this at the time to mean that Toronto did not have enough police officers and that the police would not have been able to respond to more serious calls (which is presumably exactly what they were doing)?

Is there any evidence whatsoever that there are no longer enough police to respond to a serious emergency that is not of the completely anecdotal variety the staff sergeant provided? I have not seen any to date. In fact, all the "evidence" of these alleged issues has either been of the type in the interview or based on internal emails or "exit surveys" of officers themselves. This is happening against the backdrop of the police association and its deeply reactionary leader Mike McCormack threatening job action over the changes this year.

This would appear to make the claims at least worth further investigation to see if they are justified and not part of propaganda campaign to manufacture a policing "crisis" in Toronto so as to derail reforms that are long overdue.

These largely unsubstantiated allegations in this very political context are undermined further when we hear the anonymous staff sergeant during the interview claiming that criminality was increasing and getting worse in Toronto which is demonstrably untrue. He uses this to say more crime means we need more officers as if this is an A to B proposition, which it is not given that not all crime requires the same level of police response. This is clearly meant to imply that cutting the number of officers on the force by 300 by 2019 will cause the sky to fall and unleash anarchy in our streets.

The problem for this narrative, which again went basically unchallenged by Galloway, is that while year-to-year crime stats vary in relatively meaningless ways, the trends in crime in Toronto and Canada are clear and they are all going in one direction: DOWN. And not just down, but way down.

The Crime Severity Index in Canada, for example, is down rather dramatically by 29% versus a decade ago (it is down by even more than that if you go back further). The overall crime rate is down by 28%.

Further Toronto has one of the lowest (not highest) violent crime rates among Canada’s largest cities (let alone North American cities generally) and has had for many years. Of  15 of the largest cities in Canada in a recent survey "Toronto has the lowest crime rate...and the city’s homicide rate of 1.55 is less than the homicide rate in St. John’s, Regina, Saskatoon, Halifax, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton."

These facts need also to viewed in conjunction with the reality that many marginalized and racialized communities in Toronto have been historically over-policed.

The Toronto police, their association and many of their members have a rather obvious and clear vested interest in preventing reforms that would cut into their grotesquely bloated budget that, until recently, Toronto politicians have been too scared to touch.

It would seem that the CBC is more than happy to provide a platform for them to try to do just that.

See also: The Sammy Yatim killing -- Consequences for police violence are what is "necessary for public confidence in the administration of justice"

See also: It is not just the police spending in Toronto that is out of control -- it is the police themselves

See also: You cannot 'discriminate' against the police. They are agents of discrimination.

The Sammy Yatim killing -- Consequences for police violence are what is "necessary for public confidence in the administration of justice"

When we look at the case of James Forcillo it is very difficult to not come to the conclusion that it could only have unfolded as it has because he is a police officer.

After the Toronto officer was found guilty by a jury of the "attempted murder" of Toronto teen Sammy Yatim who he had shot to death -- leaving many, myself included, still wondering if you can possibly conceive of anyone other than a cop being found guilty of that charge when the victim in the case was dead -- he was sentenced to six years in jail.

Yet he has been out on bail for all but one night since the conviction while awaiting an appeal. Despite the shocking brutality of the crime that was deemed "egregious" by a judge.

He was convicted last July, released on bail the next day, has had the bail extended already, just had it extended by the judge again yesterday and won't be back in court until October. And Forcillo will spend none of this time serving his sentence in a correctional facility of any kind!

In the Toronto Star we learn that Justice Eileen Gillese "ruled Forcillo’s incarceration pending appeal was not necessary for public confidence in the administration of justice" and that:

“Despite the seriousness of the offence for which the Appellant stands convicted,” she wrote, “in my view, fully informed members of the community will objectively understand and accept that it is not contrary to the public interest that he be released.”

I disagree.

Time and time and time again police officers in Toronto, Ontario and Canada have acted with violent impunity with little or no consequence for their actions no matter how egregious. For a police officer to even face internal departmental discipline of any seriousness is rare, let alone facing the kind of criminal charges that any other person would face for many of these acts.

Even when mass police abuse, violence and violation of civil rights occurs right in front of the media of both the country and the world, as happened during the G20 police riot in Toronto in 2012, the fallout was virtually non-existent with only one officer ever convicted of assault (and getting no jail time) and one senior officer getting a slap on the wrist for trampling on people's rights during a mass "kettling".

It is absolutely "necessary for public confidence in the administration of justice" for the public to believe that police officers are not above the law and that they are not treated totally differently by the courts, because right now that is certainly not how it seems!

In case after case we have seen just how far the system will go to ensure that police officers do not face the kind of justice anyone else would for criminal acts of violence or abuse.

As the Toronto Star noted of Forcillo's actions last year:

Nine bullets [were] fired from Const. James Forcillo’s gun, eight striking Yatim. The last six of those bullets — fired after a five-second pause, as Yatim lay paralyzed and dying from the first volley of shots — determined by a jury to be attempted murder, and called “egregious” by an Ontario judge in a scathing sentencing decision

Six shots fired into a teenager who lay paralyzed and helpless on the floor of a streetcar after already having been shot twice by Forcillo who was not even on the streetcar when he fired and despite Yatim not even having a gun!  With video clearly showing Forcillo starting to fire even though Yatim was still on the streetcar (which was empty of passengers) neither a second-degree murder nor a manslaughter conviction could be obtained.

When Forcillo was first granted bail after a single night in jail Yatim's father said “He gets to go home. My son sleeps in an urn.”

With a violent act of such singular criminal brutality that finally resulted in the conviction of an officer-- regardless of whether the "attempted murder" conviction represented real justice -- it was time for the justice system to not just send a clear message to the police that the days of impunity are ending, but also one as well that justice will be done for people, families and communities that have suffered so terribly due to the acts of violent police officers.

And yet again, to date, it has not.

See also: It is not just the police spending in Toronto that is out of control -- it is the police themselves

See also: Beware the echoes of Toronto's 'Year of the Gun'

TTC Austerity, Fantasy Parks, Heat Alerts & more -- Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal VI

Tory Doubles Down on Austerity Dumb

Predictably it turns out that the TTC -- an overburdened system that has been chronically underfunded and underdeveloped for at least a generation and that gets far less of its revenue from government than almost any other North American mass transit system -- is having a hard time in finding 2.6% of cuts to its budget without impacting service.

Hence:

In the letter obtained by the Sun, [TTC CEO] Byford says that the agency trimmed $82 million from its projected budget pressures for 2017 but still came up $149 million short.
“We’ve done everything short of impacting service,” Byford writes.

Tory, however, buys into right wing ideological myths that government is full of waste and has resorted to making cookie-cutter comparisons to other departments like the police (who have actually been chronically over-funded for a generation making the comparison inane) as well as absurd analogies like:

“I think there is more money to be found. We owe it to the taxpayers to say we have look under every cushion, under every rock to find every penny we can save and that I don’t think they have done that work yet.”...
...“Every family out there, every small business, they have to go through the same exercise, every big business does, and so I’m just saying to them (the TTC), please continue your work,” Tory added.

As if it is a certainty these savings really exist outside of Tory's imagination and as if the TTC can be likened to a household budget which as we have shown before is simply untrue and silly. 

Tory's austerity vision for the city is coming into clear focus. What is also coming into focus with blanket cuts and notions of supposed "gravy trains" that cannot be found is that Tory's attachment to reality and evidence based policy making is no greater than that of his predecessor Rob Ford.

Tory and Cressy Announce Giant Park with No Funding or Timeline

Exciting news!

Despite the aforementioned mass cuts looming over the TTC and all other city departments, Mayor Tory and Councillor Joe Cressy held a press conference to announce the city will build a gigantic new visionary elevated park that will cover the downtown rail corridor between Bathurst St and the Skydome.

Great idea. The trouble is that they made the announcement with no timeline or funding in place. 

Seriously.

By-elections

As anticipated Michael Ford cruised to an effortless and massive victory in the Ward 2 council by-election, a result that will have no impact on the balance of forces on council.

In the Ward 5 school trustee by-election, however, the result is a lot more alarming. The race to replace dedicated leftist Howard Kaplan, who sadly died earlier this year, was narrowly won by relative unknown Alexandra Lulka who is an apparent fiscal reactionary who was endorsed by Joe Oliver and who held an "intimate fundraiser" with John Baird! 

This does not bode well for the orientation of the school board.

Heat Alerts

Did you know this?:

The dangerous inadequacy, inhumanity and thoughtlessness of this policy, which means that cooling centres are not opened until after three days of extreme heat, is being made all the more clear during this exceptionally hot summer that is seeing an unusual number of heat alerts.

Thanks to the actions of anti-poverty activists like Cathy Crowe some City Councillors are now looking at changing the policy so that cooling centres would open more quickly. One can only hope pressure on them will be kept up so that they take swift action on this.

James Forcillo

In a rare moment of at least a modicum of justice, Constable James Forcillo was sentenced to six years in jail for his "attempted murder" conviction in the killing of Toronto teen Sammy Yatim on an empty Toronto streetcar in 2013.

On a less positive note, and rather predictably, he was released on bail after spending just a single night in custody pending an appeal.

Must Read Column

Joe Fiorito in the Toronto Star: Shelter system bracing for a ‘tidal wave':

There are more than 4,000 people — men, women, boys, girls, children and families — relying on shelters every night. The shelter system is a house on fire. You can’t see the flames.
I smell smoke.

Other News

Shocking accusations of overt discrimination and racism by a Toronto bar: Toronto has had Enough of Monica’s Bar and their Racist Staff. #ShutEmDown

Finally some concrete good news for Toronto cyclists: Bloor St. taking bike lane installation in stride — so far

Disgraceful tree cutting incident also highlights the outrageously pro-developer bias of the OMB: Mayor Tory ‘horrified’ over removal of trees on Bayview

See you in two weeks!

See also: Tory Austerity, TTC Inanity, Black Lives Matter, Bike Licensing & more -- The Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal V

See also: Peel Police State, Scarborough Subway, By-elections & People's Choice 2018 - Left Chapter Toronto City Politics Journal IV