Remembering the Christie Pits riot of Toronto in 1933

Joe Black’s father was a mild-mannered man who owned a small confectioner’s near Christie Pits. Unusual for the time, the store had a telephone.

On the evening of Aug. 16, 1933, the elder Black obligingly let a youth into his store who said he desperately needed to make a call. The fellow was carrying a long steel rod. As Mr. Black hovered nearby, he overhead the teenager trying to summon anti-Semitic reinforcements for the melee that had shockingly broken out across the street.

“My dad took the guy’s arm, pulled it up behind him until you could hear it crack, dislocated the arm completely,’’ recalls the son, now 87 years old, but with vivid recollections of that chaotic night.

“I have memories of everything.”

This was one time that Toronto’s Jewish community would not stand for the abuse, the Jew-baiting, which was quite prevalent in the city in those years just before World War II, when Adolf Hitler had just taken power in an economically flattened Germany and Nazism was ascendant.

This one time, Toronto’s Jews — the teen boys, at least — fought back, with help from Italian lads (the late Johnny Lombardi among them) who’d been equally resented and unwelcome as “foreigners’’ in what was an insular, xenophobic town sometimes called the Belfast of Canada because of its militantly Protestant character and the flamboyant annual Orange Parades.

Working-class youth of Scottish and British stock were just as socially and financially frozen out of the landed gentry privileges personified by the Eaton family — “they ran the city,” snorts call-me-Joe. (At Eaton’s, Jews were hired only for jobs where they wouldn’t deal with the public; a Jewish woman, for example, would not be considered for the elevator-operation position.)

But the white trash had kikes and wops to look down their noses at, as the two largest “ethnic” demographics in the ’30s.

Swastikas and Heil Hitler salutes were not an unfamiliar sight in Toronto. Neither Jews nor Italians were permitted to swim at the city-run Sunnyside pool. They weren’t welcome, either, during that hot summer of ’33, at public beaches in the east and west.

Temperatures and tempers were seething.

It all broke at the end of a softball game at Christie Pits between a Catholic youth team from St. Peter’s Church, and Harbord Playground, composed mostly of Jewish boys but also some Italians.

The rumble erupted when a clot of boys from the self-styled Pit Gang, who’d been sitting on the “camel’s hump’’ — a knoll just south of the baseball diamond — unfurled a large white quilt featuring a black swastika. Young Joe, 7 ½ years old but wandering around the park by himself as usual — “it was such a different time’’ — had been nearby. This was a kid who’d frequently been beaten up for the mere crime of being Jewish. Yet his jaw dropped, watching the riot that developed and raged for six hours.

“As soon as some of the Jewish players on the youth team saw that swastika, they went after those guys and tore that flag apart.’’

Using whatever came to hand — baseball bats, clubs, chunks of wood, a few knives (no guns involved, likely explaining why no deaths ensued) — the two sides went at each other furiously, one great big jumble of flailing arms and legs in the donnybrook middle, spilling over into smaller brawls around the park.

“Everybody was hell-bent for whatever,’’ recalls Joe. “Then a rumor started that a Jewish boy had been killed.’’

Hearing of that, Italians loaded onto trucks, arriving from the heart of their neighbourhoods along College St. Jewish youth were also falling in, armed for battle, from their primary turf at Spadina and Bloor. “It went on for hours and hours,’’ says Joe. “This was summer, so it stayed light till around 9 o’clock. But they were still at it at two, three in the morning.’’

Joe, a child, flitted here and there but never actually hit anybody or got hit. “I was a perfect coward.’’

No victor was ever declared.

“Let’s just say those Pit Gang boys got the s--- knocked out of them. The next day, the city woke up to the news of this huge riot.’’

The Toronto Telegram, status quo to its core, blamed the violence on “Jewish hooligans who started the whole thing,’’ says Joe.

The Star, with the late Jocko Thomas covering the event as a cub reporter, wrote: “While groups of Jewish and Gentile youths wielded fists and clubs in a series of violent scraps for possession of a white flag bearing a swastika symbol at Willowvale Park last night, a crowd of more than 10,000 citizens, excited by cries of ‘Heil Hitler’ became suddenly a disordered mob and surged wildly about the park and surrounding streets, trying to gain a view of the actual combatants, which soon developed in violence and intensity of racial feeling into once of the worst free-for-alls ever seen in the city.

“Scores were injured, many requiring medical and hospital attention … Heads were opened, eyes blackened and bodies thumped and battered as literally dozens of persons, young or old, many of them non-combatant spectators, were injured more or less seriously by a variety of ugly weapons in the hands of wild-eyed and irresponsible young hoodlums, both Jewish and Gentile.’’

Typical Star, blame everybody.

It was the first and last genuine riot in Toronto. Police, possibly for the first time, came under intense criticism for failure to avert a showdown, which, as was later revealed, many people had been expecting. There had been preliminary scrimmages in the east end, in previous days. Yet there were only three cops at Christie Pits.

“Toronto police were completely anti-Semitic in those days,’’ says Joe.

The riot may have been a historical watershed, but little would change for Jews, Italians and other minorities in the city, not for decades. Now we so proudly trumpet Toronto’s ethnic diversity.

The 80th anniversary of the Christie Pits riots is being commemorated with a softball game Sunday featuring media celebrities, organized by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, from both the Jewish and the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. Joe will be there, too.

He was not much more than a teenager when he enlisted, joining first the army and then transferring to the air force during the war years. As a civilian returning to Canada, Joe would lead an adventurous life. He was official photographer for the NHL and the CFL, for the Beatles’ first trip Toronto, Elvis, the romance of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton that played out here. His own romance with wife Beatrice, who passed away earlier this year, lasted 67 years.

After WWII, Joe hoped to buy a house in a new suburban Toronto development built expressly for returning vets.

He was rejected — no Jews allowed.
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Sales of new condos plunge in Toronto: Is the market ‘normalizing’?

Sales of new condos were down 18 per cent in the second quarter of 2013 over the same period a year ago as developers focus on selling off their record inventory of unsold units rather than launching new projects, says market research firm Urbanation.

Just 29 new projects, with a combined 6,728 units, were launched in the past six months.

That’s the lowest number of new launches in a decade, with the exception of 2009, according to an assessment of the new and resale condo market released Wednesday by research firm Urbanation.

However, the number of unsold units continued to climb across the Toronto Census Metropolitan area: They totalled 19,394 units as of the end of June, the vast majority of them — 11,265 condos — in projects still in the pre-construction phase.

It will be years until most of those units are built and some of those projects may never go ahead.

There are hopeful signs that the “market is regaining its footing coming out of an extremely volatile sales environment during the past two years,” said Urbanation Senior Vice-President Shaun Hildebrand in a statement.

“Developers have been cautious, but the success of some key projects this year and the solid performances of the resale and rental condo markets in the second quarter should improve confidence.”

Sales are likely to rebound further in the second half of the year as developers remain competitive in their pricing and site selection, largely sticking to high-demand, Triple A locations close to the core and transit lines, Hildebrand said.

Despite widespread uncertainty in the condo market over the past year, and even recent warnings from the Bank of Canada that the Toronto market is oversupplied, the average index price per square foot of a new condo was up in the second quarter of 2013 by 2.7 per cent, to $539 per square foot, according to the Urbanation report.

“We’re starting to see things normalize, but it’s happening gradually because of these record levels of unsold inventory,” Hildebrand said. “This is occupying the attention of developers who want to wind down this inventory before they begin with their plans for launching new projects.”

Condos under construction climbed in the second quarter to a record 57,461 units, some 13 per cent of which have yet to be sold. Many of those condos were marketed during 2011 and early 2012, when condo sales were off the charts.

From roughly 2008 to early 2012, investors almost single-handedly drove Toronto’s condo market — fuelling the push for smaller and smaller condos and fears the market was a bubble that was bound to eventually burst.

While they may, at the peak, have accounted for 65 per cent or more of all condo purchases, most have opted to rent out their units, rather than sell, given vacancy rates hovering at just over one per cent and the unprecedented demand now to live downtown, Hildebrand said.

While there has been a noticeable pullback in investor demand — Hildebrand estimates that investors now account for about 40 to 50 per cent of new condo purchases — more end-users, mostly first-time buyers tired of paying rents in downtown condos averaging more than $1,800 a month, appear to be buying again, he added.

Even resale condo sales, which started slumping dramatically in early 2012, have been picking up steam, according to Urbanation.

The 4,689 resale transactions recorded this year to the end of June were 46 per cent higher than the fourth quarter of 2012 and just seven per cent lower than the second quarter of last year.

The average resale price per square foot for the Toronto CMA hit a record $413 in the second quarter, after two quarters of decline.

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New CMHC restrictions could impact mortgage rates

First-time buyers are most likely to feel any impact of new restrictions introduced by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. that appear to be aimed at further cooling the housing market and limiting Ottawa’s exposure if house prices slump, banking and mortgage experts say.

But the impact is unlikely to be big, they add.

The federal housing agency has served notice that it is limiting guarantees it offers banks, credit unions and other mortgage lenders to $350 million per lender this month under its National Housing Act Mortgage-Backed Securities (NHA MBS) program.

CMHC had been given the okay by Ottawa to guarantee up to $85 billion of mortgage-backed securities for 2013, but an “unexpected increase in issuance volumes” resulted in those commitments having reached $66 billion by the end of July.

In a note to lenders last week, setting the August guarantee limit, CMHC said it will introduce a “formal allocation process” for the rest of the year’s guarantee allotment by month’s end.

Smaller lenders are expected to feel the restrictions far less than the big banks which have used the conversion of loans into securities with CMHC backing to tap money from a broad range of investors and offer mortgages at lower rates.

One bank economist estimated that steps the government has taken over the last year, coupled with the beginnings of a sell-off in the bond market, could push mortgage rates up anywhere from 20 to 65 basis points, or 0.2 to 0.65 of a percentage point.

While some housing analysts found the timing of the CMHC announcement curious, given that interest rates have already been edging up slightly as bonds have started to surge, others say the recent spike in home and condo sales in many major Canadian cities may have spurred Ottawa to act, yet again, to cool a market that has remained surprisingly resilient.

Home sales were up more than 16 per cent in Toronto in July, year-over-year, with increases reported in most major Canadian cities. Toronto prices were up eight per cent during the same period to an average of $513,246, according to figures released last week by the Toronto Real Estate Board.

“I think it’s fair to say that Ottawa is incredibly, intensely focused on the housing market and the last thing they want to see is the market flare higher again,” said BMO chief economist Douglas Porter. “They are doing whatever they can to guide it to a soft landing. They do want it to land.”

Jim Murphy, chief executive of the Canadian Association of Accredited Mortgage Professionals, said he doesn’t see the CMHC announcement so much as an attempt to slow the market, as “part of the policy of the current government to limit taxpayer exposure.”

It is just another policy initiative, on top of four mortgage lending rule changes over the last five years — the last of which limited amortizations for homebuyers seeking CMHC-insured mortgages to 25 years, added Murphy.

“The consistent policy of this government has been to restrict or curtail its exposure – I would even say involvement – in the overall mortgage market,” said Murphy. “Whether the housing market was really healthy or really slow right now wouldn’t have made a difference.”

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Greater Toronto Area REALTORS Sales and Price for July 2013

August 2, 2013 -- Greater Toronto Area REALTORS® reported 8,544 residential sales through the TorontoMLS system in July 2013. Total sales were up by 16 per cent compared to July 2012. Over the same period, new listings added to TorontoMLS and active listings at the end of the month were up, but by a substantially smaller rate of increase compared to sales.


“Last month’s sales represented the best July result since 2009 and was the third best July result on record. Despite recent increases in average borrowing costs, home buyers are still finding affordable home ownership options in the GTA,” said Toronto Real Estate Board President Dianne Usher.

“We are a year removed from the onset of stricter mortgage lending guidelines and many households who put their decision to purchase a home on hold have reactivated their search. An increasing number of these households are getting deals done,” continued Ms. Usher.

Reflecting tighter market conditions, the average selling price for July sales was up on a year over-year basis by eight per cent to $513,246. The low-rise market segment continued to be the driver of overall price growth. It should be noted, however, that the average condominium apartment price was also up by more than the rate of inflation on an annual basis. The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) was also up on a year-over-year basis for all major home types.

“We are forecasting continued average price growth for the remainder of 2013 and through 2014 as well. Months of inventory for low-rise homes remains near record lows, suggesting that sellers’ market conditions will remain in place in the second half of 2013. An increase in listings in 2014 would lead to more balanced market conditions and a slower pace of price growth next year, albeit still above the rate of inflation,” said Jason Mercer, TREB’s Senior Manager of Market Analysis.Please share this

Report identifies Mohamed Siad as man trying to sell alleged Rob Ford crack video

We now know the name of one other person who is believed to have seen a video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking from a crack pipe, with the Toronto Star confirming the identity of the man who tried to sell two reporters a copy last May.

The Star has identified the man as Mohamed Siad, an alleged drug dealer who was swept up in a recent police raid on a guns and drug ring operating out of the city's west end.

The newspaper reports that two writers, Robyn Doolittle and Kevin Donovan, dealt with a broker and only met Siad in order to view the video. They did not know his identity until recently, according to the report.

U.S. gossip site Gawker also reported seeing the video under similar circumstances. Editor John Cook said on Friday that Siad "appears to be the same man" he met in Toronto.

Siad is said to have been looking for a “six figure” payday in order to move to Alberta. It is unclear whether Siad is the same person who shot the video, or whether he was simply trying to sell it.

Siad faces charges related to drug trafficking, conspiracy and participating in a criminal ring after being arrested as part of Project Traveller – an extensive undercover investigation that reportedly captured conversations about the Ford crack video on wiretaps.

Chief Bill Blair has refused to comment about whether Ford is the subject of investigation, or whether police have obtained a copy of the video. That refusal has raised questions.

According to political insider Warren Kinsella, police did in fact obtain a copy of the video from Siad when he was arrested, and a search warrant was executed. He also says the Crown office was given a copy of the video and the video was disclosed to Siad's lawyer, Daniel Brown.

"Will the video come out anytime soon? I don’t know," Kinsella writes. "But what I do know is this: the video is in the hands of many people, now. And it has been seen by many more. And it shows Rob Ford smoking what appears to be crack cocaine. It is real."

When Kinsella was asked how he knows the video is real, he responded, "That’s for me to know, etc. If you dispute it, sue me."


We are not sure about all that, but based on the official wall of silence that surrounds the investigation and alleged video, it seems inevitable that someone knows more than they are saying.

The police won't officially confirm anything, the Crown won't discuss anything. Brown told the Star he couldn't speak but that he was applying to be removed from the case.

Lawyers representing several media groups are fighting in court for details of the case to be released to the public. The waiting game continues.

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A brief history of the first traffic lights in Toronto

Road vehicles in Toronto first went under the command of traffic lights 88 years ago this week. Where as in 1925 just one intersection had an electric set of signals, now there are around 2,300 sets of red, yellow, and green lights - some on a sensor, some on a timer - regulating how cars, buses, streetcars, cyclists, and pedestrians move around the city.

In 1963, Toronto became the first municipality in the world to computerize its traffic operations. In the 1920s, however, the city was already playing catch-up with other cities in the province when it came to getting traffic cops and their signs out of the middle of the street.

Before electric signals became commonplace, traffic at each major downtown intersection was supervised by a dedicated uniformed police equipped with a large rotating sign. Standing smack in the middle of the intersection, sometimes perilously between the streetcar tracks, the officer would spin the sign to indicate which direction should proceed.

Hundreds of American and a handful of Canadian cities - Windsor, London, Hamilton - had electric traffic signals while Toronto continued to stick with its traffic cops. It's hard now to imagine a time when regulating traffic with a set of colour-coded lights was an unusual concept in need of a detailed explanation, but it was once so in 1925.

In the mid-20s even second-hand cars still cost around $400 - $5,300 in today's money - and represented a significant investment beyond the reach of many. Despite the cost, Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, and Jewett cars were becoming a powerful presence on Toronto's already crowded streets, and the city was keen to keep the roads organized and safe even though there were just 22 auto accidents recorded 1925.

As a result, Bloor, St. Clair, Dundas, Spadina, University and other major arterial streets were widened in the two decades following the turn of the century for additional vehicle capacity at the expense of hundreds of trees, lush grass verges, and wide sidewalks.

The Crouse-Hinds Company system chosen to conduct a test of signal technology in Toronto had been installed on the first traffic lights just over the lake in Syracuse the year before, in 1924.

In one part of the American city, Tipperary Hill, the lights were intentionally hung upside down, with the red at the bottom, in response to vandalism by Irish residents upset that the "British" colour was on top and the "Irish" on the bottom, or so the story goes. The lights there are still upside down.

In Toronto, the lights were first arranged in a horizontal row so that red, yellow, and green were all at the same level. At Yonge and Bloor, the intersection chosen as a testing ground for the experiment (the city wasn't sure it would actually stick with the idea,) streetcars in both directions and pedestrians were required to abide by the new rules as well.

Here's how the Toronto Star explained, a little verbosely, the system of colours to wide-eyed drivers:
"... when the red light is showing on the north and south poles all north and southbound traffic ceases, when the yellow appears a warning is given to all who are approaching the intersection that the signal is about to change from "Stop" to "Go" and this interval gives a chance to those who are on the intersection to get across the street before the other traffic begins. Four lights are burning all the time, two reds and two greens or four yellow."

The first test turned out to be something of a spectacle. "A large crowd was gathered at the corner expectantly waiting for something to happen but apart from the excitement of watching the lights change in colour and laugh at the expense of some luckless motorist who was made to back across the street because he had failed to obey the signal, the watchers were disappointed," the paper noted.
In general, drivers found the concept easy to grasp despite the sudden and confusing introduction. That said, a team of four cops granted quite a few mulligans on the first day, politely explaining the rules to anyone bewildered enough to cause a blockage.

"The public took to the signals with very little trouble," Deputy Chief Constable Robert Beatty reported later in August 1925. "For the first few days it was necessary to have two men there, but now there is only one now." Parkdale residents near the intersections of Lake Shore and Jameson and Lake Shore and Dunn would be next to get automatic lights, he said.

The new technology, quaintly known as "semaphores" at first, didn't mean the city could dispense with traffic cops just yet. The lights cycled automatically but an attendant was always on hand to manually override the system and revert to hand signals should a problem occur. If a fire truck approached the officer was instructed to turn all the lights red and wave the vehicle through.

Within a month of the Yonge and Bloor lights going live a bell had been added to the set-up in an attempt to impress on dawdling motorists the urgency of the yellow signal. As you would expect, the overall speed of automobiles was much slower in 1925 - a newspaper report that year described traveling 32 km/h on city streets as "foolish."

The system, despite freeing up traffic police and being easy to understand, wasn't without its detractors. "I have watched motors waiting a full minute where there was no traffic whatever on the cross street. That seems rather absurd," W. G. Robertson, chairman of the Ontario Motor League, a predecessor to the Canadian Automobile Association, remarked after a visit to Atlantic City where signals were widespread.

The group would eventually get behind the idea of traffic lights in Toronto, despite Robertson's concerns about efficiency and cost. At the same time, automobile discussions also touched on whether or not to make twin headlamps and horns mandatory.

Off the back of the successful test at Yonge and Bloor, traffic lights were added at Queen and Yonge, Yonge and Dundas, and 15 other downtown traffic interchanges, this time in a more familiar, vertical configuration on the hydro pole on the opposite corner to the driver. From there, electric traffic lights rapidly proliferated, freeing up large numbers of police officers.

Toronto became the first city in the world to develop and implement a computerized traffic management system in 1963 with the advent of the Gardiner Expressway, Don Valley Parkway, and Allen Road and other surface transportation upgrades.

Fast forward to today and Toronto has over 2,300 sets of traffic signals all centrally-managed out of a high-tech control centre in East York. Every aspect of every intersection is simulated on a computer, optimized based on vehicle behaviour, and regularly tweaked to provide an environment that keep cars moving as best possible.

Still, when the power goes out, Toronto continues to call on its traffic cops.

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"Shocking" number of luxury condos for sale on MLS

The number of $1 million-plus condos for sale in Toronto has reached such “shocking” levels, it would take about 20 months to sell them all given current demand, more than four times what it would take to clear the current inventory of more conventional condos.

What’s even more worrisome is those numbers don’t include “shadow inventory,” which could easily exceed the number of high-end condos that were listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service as of the end of June, says Toronto realtor Andrew la Fleur who did the math recently on behalf of an investor.

That shadow inventory includes units that have yet to sell in five-star hotel projects like the Trump International Hotel & Tower, Ritz-Carlton, Shangri-La and Four Seasons, all of which have hit the market in the last two years.

Also part of that great unknown are pricey penthouses still sitting empty in dozens of newer condo projects, especially in the downtown core: Developers don’t like to dump too many of their unsold units on the publicly accessible MLS system all at once, for fear it can make the project look bad and undercut prices.

In the first six months of this year, there were 145 condos listed on MLS for $1 million or more, says la Fleur, who was shocked by the numbers when he started delving into the high-end market recently on behalf of an investor who wanted to know if they stood to make more money buying one pricey property or two or three cheaper condos.

Only 42 of those $1-million plus units actually sold, an average of seven per month, says la Fleur. That equates, in key real estate market terms, into a 20-month supply. It was even higher, 25 months, in tony Yorkville, much to la Fleur’s surprise.

That’s more than four times the three to five-month supply of more conventional condos that were for sale in the first six months of 2013.

“It’s very crowded out there,” says la Fleur, who found prices have remained flat, or even slumped, for folks who bought into many of the five-star hotel projects before they were built.

He believes it could be at least three years, and perhaps as much as a decade, before investors in that sector really start to see gains.

While prices have indeed been flat, there hasn’t been the slump many had expected now that all those five-star offerings are up and open, says Shaun Hildebrand, senior vice president of condo research firm Urbanation.

“When you look at the numbers and relate them to the rest of the market, it would suggest that there is a glut, a drastic oversupply,” of $1 million-plus condos, says Hildebrand. “But this is a very niche segment of the market. It really needs to be looked at in isolation.”

In fact, months of supply in Yorkville has always run about twice that of the conventional condo market and it’s just going to take time for all these new units to find buyers, he added.

“This is a new market to Toronto, it’s still in its infancy.”

Wealthy buyers are still looking at Toronto, says Ross McCredie, chief executive officer of luxury realtor Sotheby’s International who sold his $2 million condo in the Four Seasons last spring to a Hong Kong buyer.

“There are a lot of people actually purchasing higher-end condos with cash as investment vehicles that they can rent out because the vacancy rate is so low in Toronto,” says McCredie. “That’s a key indicator. It shows that on a long-term basis, those condos are going to prove out.”

In fact, dozens of condos in the Ritz, Shangri-La and Four Seasons are already being rented out, either by choice or because investors couldn’t find buyers. Rents are running more than $3 to more than $5 per square foot.

That translates into a mere $6,000 a month for a 1,600 square foot unit at the Ritz.

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Toronto Cop James Forcillo ID'd as cop in Sammy Yatim shooting

TORONTO - The governing body that oversees the city’s cops vows to do all it can to find out why an officer, identified Tuesday as Const. James Forcillo, shot and killed Sammy Yatim on a streetcar over the weekend.

The 14 Division officer has yet to speak publicly, but his lawyer said he’s “devastated.”

“We are waiting for the investigation to proceed,” Peter Brauti told the Toronto Sun Tuesday. “It’s important that people don’t rush to judgment because not all of the evidence is yet available.”

Police Chief Bill Blair suspended Forcillo, a member of the service for six years, with pay on Monday.

The Toronto Police Services Board said Tuesday members are anxiously awaiting the results of simultaneous investigations — by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit and Blair — into the shooting that killed 18-year-old Yatim and sparked widespread public outrage after witness video was posted to YouTube.

“The board assures the community that it is fully committed and determined to do everything in its power to pursue answers to the questions which are troubling us all and to ensure that appropriate action is taken as called for by the investigations,” TPSB chair Alok Mukherjee said in a statement.

After offering “sincere sympathy” to Yatim’s family, he went on to say the board “recognizes the serious concerns” of “members of the community at large” in the wake of the teen’s death.

“Like Mr. Yatim’s family and other Torontonians, the (TPSB) seeks to understand the tragic events that transpired (early Saturday) in order that appropriate action can follow,” Mukherjee said.

He said the board believes the two investigations are of the “utmost importance” and members support the chief ’s “unequivocal commitment to do his part to obtain the answers that we are all seeking.”

The SIU, which investigates any serious injury or death involving cops, is probing Forcillo’s actions and that of 22 witness officers.

Blair, who has pledged to “co-operate fully” with the SIU, is required under the Police Services Act to review the policies, procedures and training related to the fatal shooting as well as the conduct of all involved coppers.

The chief must report his findings to the TPSB within 30 days of the completion of the SIU’s probe.

The TPSB has made it clear to Blair that his review should be “comprehensive” and include “sufficient detail to address the very serious questions” the board has regarding Yatim’s death, Mukherjee said.
By Chris Doucette ,Toronto Sun
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New footage of Sammy Yatim shooting one more troubling snapshot

Over the past few days, Toronto and the rest of Canada has been granted access to online video recordings of the shooting death of Sammy Yatim, who was killed following a police interaction while brandishing a knife on an empty downtown streetcar.

The small video snapshots we've seen – with another, most vivid video coming on Tuesday – paint a picture that has even Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair calling the incident troubling. He is vowing to provide answers, we continue to demand them. But as we do that, we come to our own conclusions.

There is video of the incident shot from a long distance. There is video shot from much closer, captured amid a gathering of passersby walking in front of the camera on occasion. There is other video as well, all of it posted online for the world to see. To judge.

Toronto Police Association President Mike McCormack has asked the public to hold judgment until the full story is out. Until the investigation is complete.

He says grainy cell phone video of the incident tells only part of the story. And he is right.

Even a newly-released video, seeming to be a recording from security camera footage, only shares a snapshot, another piece to add to the puzzle. But those pieces look very, very bad.

New footage posted online shows from another angle the incident that left the 18-year-old dead. And while it runs longer than the various videos shot on cell phone cameras and released online, it is the moment of the shooting that it captures most vividly.

In previous footage, someone can be heard shouting "put down the knife" before three gun shots are heard, followed by a pause and six more shots. A brief moment later a Taser is deployed.

The recently-released security footage, shot in black-and-white, is taken from a different angle. In it, viewers can see the person on board the streetcar. They can see the person fall to the ground after the first three gunshots. They can see the person's leg twitch amid the second round of gunfire.

The officer at the centre of the incident has been suspended with pay, news of which was released late Monday night. McCormack called the move "extraordinary" and points out that the officer had not been charged or even yet accused with any wrongdoing.

"A video is just one segment of a broader picture," McCormack told CBC's Matt Galloway on Tuesday. "We have always been about due process and due diligence, but it doesn't paint the entire picture. All I'm asking is let’s let the SIU do its job."

[ More Brew: Fallout from Sammy Yatim shooting won’t end soon ]

The Toronto Police Services Board released a statement on Tuesday, calling the ongoing investigations "of the utmost importance." Even Yatim's family agrees that patience is required.

In a formal statement, obtained by CityNews, the family thanks Chief Blair for everything he is doing to "ensure that this matter is being investigated thoroughly and judiciously."

The letter further reads: "We expect that this matter will be investigated with the fullest measure of the law, so that incidents like this can be better managed and deescalated before such extreme use of force is ever exercised again."

Yes, there is plenty of video online. Reports on the content of those videos and the recollection of witnesses suggest that Yatim at one point exposed himself. They suggest the 18-year-old shouted profanity at the officer as he was told to drop the weapon. They allege no one was in immediate danger.

And they may all be right, although any of us would be on edge while in the near vicinity of a troubled soul brandishing a knife.

But so much of what happened the night Yatim was shot dead is still unclear. So much of it not captured on video.

The Ontario Special Investigations Unit is investigating. The force itself will review what happened and the province will be holding its own inquiry into what led to Yatim’s death, according to Ontario ombudsman Andre Marin.

Those investigations will consider the contents of all those public videos, video that has not yet come to light and witness testimony. Investigators will also pore over victim impact statements and first-hand accounts and render their decisions.

When all that is finished, there may be some of us who don't agree with the findings, or who question the methods or suspect the process.

Then we can demand to know the full story. But right now we are looking at snapshots. Damning, gruesome snapshots.
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Toronto Teen shot on TTC streetcar to cop: 'You're a f---ing pussy'

TORONTO - The abundantly available video evidence is as disturbing to listen to as it is to watch.

But you know it will be by a lot people.

“You’re a f---ing pussy.” These are believed to be the final words of 18-year-old Sammy Yatim as he was shot from the gun of at least one Toronto Police officer.

“Drop the knife” may have been the very last words he heard before being shot to death.

These are just some of many revelations on a new video taken by downtown resident Markus Grupp, who was walking by when the incident occurred on Dundas St. W. and Grace St. just after midnight Saturday.


The Grupp film, and others, will be studied relentlessly by the SIU. They already have been analyzed by, it seems, everybody else.

They offer a lot.

And beg many questions too.

Perhaps the most compelling is why did this shooting occur so soon after police arrived on the scene?

Were there other ways to go?

“The shots were fired less than two minutes after the cops arrived,” said Grupp.

Why not a better attempt at negotiations? Why not wait longer? Was there an immediate threat?

The deceased’s uncle Jim Yatim tells the Toronto Sun his nephew had no known history of mental illness.

So why was there shooting instead of talking?

“There were also eight to 11 cops at the front door at one point,” said Grupp.

“Not sure of the threat the victim posed to the public.”

But Grupp did make this observation.

“The (several) ‘you’re a f---ing pussy’ taunts came shortly before the first three shots,” he said. “If public safety was a concern, then there were no officers focused on containing the scene and moving away bystanders until after the shooting.

“Little effort was made to secure the rear door.”

The actions, anxiousness — in some cases the lack of — is also noteworthy.

At “12:04 a.m. (Saturday) one or more Toronto Police officers fire three shots, then a pause, followed by another burst of six shots,” Grupp said. “I hear what I believe is a Taser fired. Shortly thereafter, one or two officers board the streetcar and one officer runs on the back.”

But it was a female officer, standing next to what is believed to be the shooting officer, that has caught the eye of many.

“A female officer stands beside the subject officer with her arms folded in front of her, with no weapon drawn and no sign of any concern for her safety,” notes crime specialist Ross McLean, a former Toronto copper. “At the five-second mark, the suspect appears to raise both his arms, in a surrender-type movement, then as another officer runs around the back of the streetcar he holds the knife up for him to see.”

What does the TTC streetcar camera show?

The question is what was it the shooting officer, or perhaps officers, felt was the risk that other officers like the female did not seem to be concerned with?

Why was the area not more shut down with such a risk imminent?

“Several pedestrians and cyclists continue to pass through the scene from east to west,” said Grupp. “Several cars pass by the scene from west to east on Dundas.”

McLean notices two other interesting factors.

One is it appears the first three police bullets rang out while the suspect was standing. The next six when he appears to be down on the ground or on his knees.

“The final six shots, it appears the officer has now levelled the gun, as opposed to the angled up position of his arm previously, possibly indicating the final shots were fired at the suspect on the floor of the streetcar,” said McLean.

“Just 19 seconds later a police officer is seen running into the picture quickly carrying what appears to be a Taser in his hands, he moves to the first stair of the streetcar, and at 1:28 of the video, apparently deploys the Taser, 38 seconds after the final shot.

“The officer’s arm angle would appear to show he was deploying it on the suspect on the floor of the streetcar.”

Meanwhile, look at the Grupp video closely: You can see officers appear to be pulling the shooter officer away. Once the nine gunshots have stopped, “he is surrounded by officers who grab him and pull him back sharply (while) he appears to be pointing his gun at the suspect.” It’s a strange scene.

But thanks to the videos there is so much available for the public to see and so much evidence for the SIU to consider.

For public confidence and perception they, and Toronto Police brass and the association, have got to get this one right.

In the end, the SIU will decide whether a crime occurred in this police shooting. But either way regular citizens will decide if what went on there this weekend was a justified shooting or a fatal case of comply-or-die overkill.
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