Just in case you needed confirmation that Toronto Councillor Shelley Carroll is an idiot

One of the reasons that embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's support is holding so firm, aside from his sincere efforts to curb wasteful municipal spending, is one of default. It's that his City Council opponents are blithering idiots who are salivating at the prospect at getting their grubby hands back inside your wallets. 

One such example is Shelley Carroll, a posturing, juvenile grandstander who is obviously exactly as bright as she presents.

According to The Toronto Sun:

Carroll suggested Ford was holding up that police probe by “hiding behind his lawyer” and refusing to meet with investigators.

“We are now at the point where I can’t think of any Torontonian who would have been able to put off answering questions for the police who have politely asked for this long,” Carroll said.   

Evidently Ms Carroll is unaware that unlike Stalin's Russia or Castro's Cuba, a state that has the affinity of the left wing of Toronto's City Council, Canadians cannot be legally compelled to speak to police.

They can be arrested if police believe they have sufficient grounds to lay charges (which they evidently do not in the case of Ford) , but even then they cannot be forced to answer police questions. We have this thing called a Constitution and a Charter of Rights, plus long-standing British legal traditions which deal with these matters.

It couldn't be that Ms Carroll was having some drug-induced hallucination where she thought we were all living in the sort of police state we would have if she and her ilk were ever placed in charge, could it?

Rob Ford on crack is still better than Olivia Chow on whatever she's on that makes her want to waste public funds

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair says he has the Rob Ford  "crack video".

However Blair confirmed there is nothing in the video that would form the basis to lay criminal charges against Ford.

Frankly, I don't care. Ford is doing a good job keeping city finances in order and ensuring public funds aren't squandered the way it was under his predecessor David Miller and the way his rivals would should they get the opportunity.

"Anti-police violence" protesters in Toronto attack innocent drivers and smash car windshields

You may recognize some of the know-nothings who humiliated themselves at the Swamp Line 9 protest.

UPDATE: GenuineWitty ahs the full rundown of the protest HERE

The "tolerant" left : Conservative protester assaulted at Sammy Yatim Protest

Self-promoting slime will diminish efforts to get answers about Sammy Yatin's death

Despicable groups like OCAP, No One Is Illegal, Occupy Toronto, some of the more shady characters attached to Idle No More, and a variety of scumbags are trying to appropriate concern about the police shooting of Toronto teenager Sammy Yatin for their own purposes.

GenuineWitty was at the recent protest and reports on the efforts of the slain youth's family to distance themselves from the opportunistic predators of the far left. 

Law enforcement disgrace in California: Police arrest man for filming raid on sidewalk, then shoot his dog in front of him

This is beyond the pale


h-t Blazing Cat Fur

Toronto District School Board's partners OCAP hold "F*ck the Police" march

[ UPDATE: Apparently the headline should be "Some leaders and plenty of members of TDSB partner OCAP hold Fuck the Police March" ]

The appalling behavior and language from the mentally unbalanced fanatics at the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) during their "Fuck the Police March" last week is typical of that group. Carrying flags honoring Cuabn mass-murderer Che Guevara, they converged on Toronto's Police Headquarters where, ironically, the police protected them from oncoming traffic as the radicals hurled fowl-mouthed invective at the people whose responsibility is law enforcement.

Notable about this is that slow-witted leadership of the Toronto District School Board thinks it is appropriate to partner with the violent, radical OCAP and give them access to school children.




OCAP plans to gather at Toronto City Hall to harass the Community Development and Recreation Committee on Monday morning at 9 am. That may prove amusing.

h/t GenuineWitty

That'll learn ya! "Critical Thinkers" at Toronto District School Board complain to police about sarcastic blogger

At the Toronto District School Board and particularly at its ideological godmother, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, they claim their goal is to produce critical thinkers. What they don't tell you is that by their definition, "critical thinking" means to think exactly the way they tell you to, without dissent...or else.

A Toronto blogger who goes by the moniker Blazing Cat Fur has been at the forefront of exposing the hypocrisy as well as the sheer idiocy promoted by the TDSB and it looks like they finally had enough.

Yesterday morning,the mild-mannered, law-abiding blogger received a visit from not one but two Toronto Police Service Detectives to investigate a sarcastic comment left on his blog musing, "OISE and the TDSB need to be purged, or burnt to the ground whichever is more effective."

Interestingly, when my friend, Muslim reformer Tarek Fatah, received an actual death threat via social media from someone in Toronto, the police didn't think it was worth their time to bother with that.

As usual, the TDSB brain-trust has made themselves look stupid and Blazing Cat Fur, as well as other critics of the preposterous social engineering attempts by the public school board, will redouble their efforts to expose them.

Please check out BLAZING CAT FUR'S post on this HERE..

Also check out The Toronto Sun article about this here

Toronto police and Ontario prosecutors - working hard to undermine confidence in the justice system

Aside from arresting and prosecuting criminals, the job of the police and court system in a democracy is to maintain public confidence in the idea that the state is interested in the administration of justice.

A number of actions by Toronto police and prosecutors in the last few months have only served to undermine faith in our law enforcement and judicial institutions.

The was the case of David Chen, the proprietor of the Lucky Moose store, who was arrested and prosecuted, and after great expense acquitted, following his detention of a serial thief who preyed upon him.

Last month, there was the instance of a man and his dog who were both assaulted by Khomeinist goons at a Queen's Park demonstration calling for the destruction of Israel. Rather than arrest the followers of the totalitarians in Iran who committed the assault, the arrested the victim and threatened to lock him up for a weekend.

Former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant never has to face a trial following his killing of an enraged, violent bicycle courier with his car. Bryant was probably not guilty of manslaughter, but Moses Mahilal was certainly defending himself and his family when he fought off an intruder in his girlfriend's mother's house, yet unlike the influential former politician, seems headed for a criminal trial.

Moses Mahilal and his girlfriend, Sarah Walsh, sensed trouble as they entered her mother’s house just after 3 a.m. on July 31, 2011, and found the side door ajar. 

They became even more alarmed when they saw a large pair of black, high-top Air Jordans at the bottom of the staircase leading to the second floor, where her mother, Kimberly Walsh, was asleep.   

Mahilal, 26, made a beeline for the kitchen, grabbed a large knife and ran upstairs, where he confronted the intruder hiding behind the door of Kimberly Walsh’s bedroom.   

Within minutes, the wounded intruder, Kino Johnson, 33, was gone, and hours later Mahilal, was under arrest and charged with aggravated assault. A preliminary hearing is set for Sept. 11.

Moses Mahilal under arrest for defending his girlfriend and
her mother from a confessed felon who broke into their home

The contempt engendered by the perception of a two-tiered justice system in Ontario can do untold harm to the ability of the police and judiciary to enforce the law.  When aggrieved, self-proclaimed victim groups comprised of thugs, professional criminals, and influence peddlers get preferential treatment by police and the courts and honest citizens have to endure unfair prosecutions, the result will be less respect for the police and court system.

Ontario's democratic society is owed better than that.

Cupcake and Coren talk about when police act like fascists

The idiot cop who arrested and threatened Allan Eintoss was in dereliction of duty and acted like a stupid fascist. That disgrace with a badge should be disciplined and some among Toronto's police need to learn the the laws they are supposed to enforce.

NDP Deputy Leader Libby Davies' East Vancouver by the numbers

Will NDP Leader Tom Mulcair let Libby Davies do for Canada what she did for East Vancouver?


4,600 intravenous drug users live in the Downtown Eastside


587 drug injections happen daily at the Supervised Injection Site; this includes people who return multiple times a day


20 per cent of people in the Downtown Eastside are homeless


87 per cent of the population has Hepatitis C


200 people died of drug overdoses in the Downtown Eastside in 1993, the worst year on record


1997 was the year a public health emergency was declared in the DTES


270, 000 tax dollars were given to VANDU – the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users – last year. VANDU advocates, among other things, for “the right to obtain, prepare and inject drugs, and to be intoxicated on drugs”


49 per cent of police contacts in the Downtown Eastside are believed to be with someone who has a mental illness


80 per cent of Downtown Eastside residents have been previously incarcerated


1 year is the new mandatory minimum jail sentence a repeat offender who is caught selling drugs; 2 years if they’re near a school or caught selling to youth


Check out more at the fascinating blog Eastside Stories: Diary of a Vancouver Beat Cop

Bad police work, a rock solid alibi, and an ID based on a facebook picture

Lizz Aston of Toronto was stuck with a $3000 legal bill after being charged based on being fingered by a barroom brawler from a thumbnail facebook photo on a bar's "like" page.

According to the Toronto Star,

The Nov. 19 incident at The Piston (a bar on Bloor Street West in Toronto) began when two couples were involved in a dispute over a coat. Several blows were struck...

On Jan. 5, after returning from a visit to Cuba with her boyfriend, Aston received an email from an officer pointing out that the victim identified her as the woman who struck her.

The first clue of sloppy police work could have been that Aston was notified that she was a suspect by email.

According to the Toronto Sun, Aston said:

“I told the officer I was at an art opening for a friend, then went home with my boyfriend because he injured his knee. We stayed in for the rest of the night and I did research on the computer for an art installation I was working on. The officer didn’t care ... I don’t think the police looked into it further.”

Aston said, the officer “read me my rights. I was searched, finger printed and processed.”

She retained a lawyer “had numerous court dates and spent thousands of dollars to right this wrong.”

Eventually, the charges, filed by Const. Kristal McCullough of 14 Division, were dropped, but not after an arrest, fingerprinting, a number of court appearances, and a legal bill that Aston had deal with.

The Toronto Sun's Joe Warmington has accused the Toronto Police of outright lying in trying to cover up their incompetence in this case.

Toronto's Police have a hard job, but when a few bad police shirk their responsibility to tell the truth and damage public confidence by trying to cover up their ineptitude, it makes the job harder for all of them.

UPDATE: Toronto Police seem to be spending more time arresting innocent people than criminals. The question is whether this is a result of police laziness or stupidity. (update h/t Blazing Cat Fur)

The nanny police state strikes again in Ontario!

Police arrested a Kitchener, Ont., father outside his daughter’s school because the four-year-old drew a picture of him holding a gun.

Jessie Sansone told the Record newspaper that he was in shock when he was arrested Wednesday and taken to a police station for questioning over the drawing. He was also strip-searched.

Prisoners trick Vermont State Police into having a pig symbol on their cruisers

Can you spot the piggy?

I guess the geniuses who thought it would be a good idea to have prisoners print the decals for Vermont State Police cars figured it was a not-so-subtle irony.

Well, they didn't factor in the mischievousness of one group of convicts who managed to sneak a pig on to the State Police vehicle symbol without being noticed for almost 2 years.


h/t Doug D.

60 Days in the life of a Montreal Police Station circa 1973

Station 10 is a National Film Board documentary released in 1973  "drawn from 60 days and nights of on-the-spot filming in the early 1970s. It is a view of life in the inner city that usually only the policeman has reason to encounter. There are ugly incidents here, but there is also reassurance that people in trouble do have help at hand."                   

Watch the whole movie below:

NDP Deputy Leader Libby Davies' spouse's website insults the memory of fallen Toronto Police Sgt. Ryan Russell

Rabble.ca is the radical neo-Marxist website funded by unions like CUPE and CUPW and by the NDP- linked Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It was founded by Judy Rebick and its current publisher is Kim Elliott, the spouse of NDP Deputy Leader Libby Davies.

Rabble has a public discussion forum called babble, which is closely monitored and users are frequently banned for what they deem inappropriate comments. "Inappropriate" by their standards is anything that defends the Canadian Conservative Party,The United States of America, Israel or any other conventional institution or utters any criticism of unions.

What is considered appropriate, and is actively encouraged, are vicious attacks on the police. Shockingly, this even went so far as to insult the memory of Toronto Police Sergeant Ryan Russell on the day he was being mourned by most of the city in whose service he gave his life.

They include one from a regular rabble/babble contributor called "NoDiffrencePartyPooper" who claims, amid insulting the police as "Gestapo" and "fascist" that he regrets the death of Sergeant Ryan "as much as the next person."

Sure. If the "next person" is a rabble contributor or Charles Manson. But not if the next person is a decent human being.

You can read some of the even more disgusting comments they made below, with links. Included are those by a moderator called Maysie, who criticizes one person for writing positive things about the police and Sergeant Russell but has no problem with his being insulted on the day his family buried him. 

"Here in Toronto, we have been immersed in a media celebration of everything good about our police, after one of them was killed. The coverage has been wall to wall, relentless and reverential. I have no doubt that this is partially intended to wash away the rather more distaff memories of the fascistic police palookas' gestapo tactics during the G20. I regret the officer's death as much as the next person but this story has been a good deal more prominent and profile than it would ordinarily be.. Police are the muscle and hired guns of the state, something the recent media coverage doesn't cover." 

"it appears to me that a berserk person was rampaging through town in a stolen snow plough being chased by police, when an officer decided to end the situation by planting himself in the path of the snow plough. Do I have that right? And 10,000 cops have swarmed in Toronto to celebrate that inspired attempt at traffic control?"

From babble moderator Maysie: "Here on babble .. many of us have a negative view of the police, not only as armed agents of the state tasked with the legitimated use of violence and threat of violence against anyone they choose, but who are given special rights above the rest of us, whether at work or otherwise. ..The police will brutalize whoever they choose to, with relative impunity."  

"the death of Ryan Russell was essentially a traffic accident."

"In Toronto thousands of gang members are meeting to show solidarity with one of their own. This is the first fatality in that force in many years but they need to send a message to the population that they stand together against the rabble. In the meantime real workers suffer fatalities far more often than members of our privileged institutional gangs. Notice that the corporate bosses in Canada kill more workers than other comparable jurisdictions but the police will never protect us against those crimes. Workers are collateral damage in the corporate world. The police are holy warriors needed to control the population on behalf of those corporate murderers."

More from moderator Maysie :"I should have advised you that posting pro-police propaganda, while not against the rules, is simply not a good idea in a progressive forum such as babble."

 
I wonder what New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton has to say about all of this?

Let Toronto Police know you appreciate them!

The last 24 hours have been bad ones for Toronto Police officers and for the city.

Toronto Police Sergeant Ryan Russell was killed and another constable injured when trying to stop a manic who stole a snowplough and took it on a rampage through a number of downtown neighbourhoods.

The night before, a Toronto police officer was injured by a radical leftist thug at a protest against the Jewish Defence League.

Toronto police officers are good men and women doing a difficult job. They spend their days and nights working to help the citizens of  this city and often risk their lives to do so.

It's a hard job because a huge percentage of the people they deal with are distressed by crimes perpetrated against them, or are aggravated and in many cases are violent. Think about how often you have to deal with something like that at your workplace. If you're the average person, the answer will be rarely or never.

Having to deal with that kind of pressure and responsibility is a difficult burden, and Toronto's cops overwhelmingly bear it with courage and grace.

As a young child, I grew up with cops around. My father had many friends on the force in 51 Division and they were friendly, wickedly funny men who were uniformly (no pun) decent, honorable Canadians. One of my favorite childhood memories is when my dad's friend, Officer John Little, a large man known by the moniker of his reverse namesake from Sherwood Forest, much to my shock, actually let me hold his service revolver when I asked him.

I used to ask him just about every time I saw him and the refusal was so consistent that the whole question of, "Can I hold your gun?" was more of a ritual than a genuine inquiry. But for some reason, on this occasion, he decided I was ready.

For a five year-old, it was an ebullient thrill to watch him remove the bullets and then pass the revolver to my anxiously waiting hands. In my mind, I was going to be Steve McGarrett and wield the gun like an expert TV show cop. What happened was that  as soon I took hold of the gun, both my hands dropped to an immediate 180 degrees. The real thing was a heck of a lot heavier than the gun from my Lone Ranger cap gun set.

Like any other kid, I grew up on TV shows and movies where police shootouts were weekly, if not daily occurrences, at least in that fictional world. In the real one, it was surprising to hear that most of the policemen I knew never fired their weapons once in the line of duty. Most had only had to remove their pistols from their holsters only once or twice over lengthy careers.

Toronto was a smaller, safer city back then.

When I was a kid, police I knew used to encourage me to say hi or at least smile at passing cops. They said they appreciated the friendly gesture from the people they were there to protect and serve. It's something I still do and think we all should.

There are some miscreants who view the police only as impediments to their ability to commit crimes. Incredibly, there are still narcissistic, nitwit cultists who think of police as "fascist pigs who are instruments of state oppression."

The policemen and women of Toronto are honourable, brave individuals who are risking their lives for us and who deserve our appreciation. Today's events were a tragic reminder of that.

My commitment to learn more about the Caledonia crisis

At the Hanukkah party for Blazing Car Fur, I had the privilege of meeting a few members of CANACE (Canadian Advocates for Charter Equality). These people are representatives of the citizens of Caledonia who endured an extremely difficult time during the crisis there.

I had to confess to them that I know very little about what happened during those events. My general understanding was that it was a land claims dispute between local natives and the non-native population that erupted into violence.

From what I know of their history in Canada, I tend to be a little forgiving of First Nations civil disobedience, since, as a people, they have endured generations of injustice and abuse. But speaking to intelligent, articulate advocates like Gary McHale made me realize that despite the truth of those sentiments, it was glib to apply them to innocent citizens of Caledonia whose rights were being egregiously violated, and who faced discrimination in the face of injustice by a government and police who chose to appease violent aggressors.

I made a commitment to McHale, who has become famous as the man arrested, in Canada, for the crime of waving a Canadian flag, to learn more. McHale is an inventive and passionate defender of the rights of all Canadians, regardless of race, to be able to enjoy the rights afforded by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That seems like a reasonable position to me.

He contends what amounts to gross neglect of duty by the Ontario Provincial Police during the crisis and if that was the case, then it is in the public interest to investigate this and ensure it never happens again.

The crisis has regained a lot of public attention because of Christie Blatchford's recent book, Helpless, Caledonia's nightmare of fear and anarchy and how the law failed all of us and the efforts of the radical left to silence her.

This is something that we all need to learn more about.

Police thuggery?

Most police are good guys doing a tough job.

If this report is accurate, the Ottawa P.D. is doing itself and its reputation a huge disservice by allowing these perpetrators to keep their badges:

Two years ago a young woman named Stacy Bonds was walking along an Ottawa sidewalk on her way to a friend’s house. Bonds is 27, just five feet tall, weighs barely 100 pounds. She’s not a trouble-maker, has no criminal history, no record of causing problems for police. She had — horrors — enjoyed a few drinks, though a judge ruled later that she was not drunk. Two police officers stopped her, checked her out, discovered she was harmless and told her to be on her way. She took a few steps, then stopped and asked them why they’d stopped her in the first place. 

That got her handcuffed, thrown in the back of a cruiser and spirited off to the police station, where police pulled her hair, kneed her in the back a couple of times, slammed her to the ground with a riot shield, cut off her clothes and bra while a few male officers watched, and strip-searched her.

That done, they threw her in a cell, half-naked, for three hours. They charged her with public drunkenness — though she wasn’t — and with aggressive behaviour, though a video showed that wasn’t true either. 

Now, how big a moron do you have to be to pull a stunt like this?

The rest is here at The National Post

The domestic militarization of the US war on drugs

A SWAT team raid on a Columbia, Missouri home where a corgi dog was shot and killed in front of a suspect who offered no resistance and his children has gone viral on YouTube. This was over a suspected minor drug infraction.

Reason TV discusses the militarization and stupidity of the ongoing "War on Drugs" in the US.

You can see that discussion and the video of the raid below: