Toronto police say an internal investigation is underway after a video circulating on social media appeared to show an officer giving a citizen the middle finger over an argument about alleged illegal parking last week.

In the video, which has been viewed more than 425,000 times on TikTok, two Toronto police officers are seen ordering Starbucks in the area of Front and Berkeley streets near the city’s Distillery District on Friday afternoon.

The exchange continues for several minutes and the officers eventually get back in their cruiser. The video then shows one of them giving the citizen the middle finger from the passenger seat of the cruiser.

The individual who took the video later told CP24 that he doesn’t believe the officer knew they were being filmed as by that point he had put away the body camera he was using previously. The footage, he said, came from a pair of glasses with a built-in camera.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    Great but… What’s there to investigate? They parked illegally, they refused to even say “oopsie”, let alone ticket themselves as they should, and then gave the finger. It’s all on a few minutes video, this is not rocket science.

    Just punish this behaviour accordingly, put them on a week of unpaid leave and require them to take some training or something, tell the rest of the police force to start fucking behaving themselves like the example they are supposed to be.

    No investigation required

  • Professorozone@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    LOL. Canadians are so polite. They are actually investigating the police for shooting a bird. In the US we don’t even bother with that when they shoot a person.

      • Professorozone@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        3 months ago

        Which? The fact that Canadians are polite or the fact that cops don’t get investigated for crimes in America?

        • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          3 months ago

          That Canadians are polite and our cops are cool. They also avoid investigations.

          I also just realized I stumbled upon a month old post.

          Hi!

          • Professorozone@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            3 months ago

            Yeah, a month doesn’t seem that old to me, but I kind of have an attention span. I guess it’s a curse.

            Also, I’ve been to Canada and everyone was really nice, just like I had come to expect. Not quite as nice as New Zealanders, but way up there. Try visiting Germany some time. It’s the new France.

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      How effing nice would it be for our biggest problems with police to be that they park illegally and give people the bird sometimes.

    • Kingcong@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      This isn’t being investigated due to the bird. It’s due to the illegal parking in a bike lane. Someone died a week or so ago in Toronto due to a construction bin being left in the bike lane.

  • saltesc@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    3 months ago

    What a fucking moron. They’re cops. They get to be as close to their vehicle as possible while on-duty in case shit goes down. They’re also humans, so they get to fucking eat and have breaks while on-duty.

    It would’ve been bitter-sweet if a radio shout “Shots fired” at some address a few blocks away, dropping their food and racing away. Like, yeah, that’s obviously why they chose a coffee shop with a loading zone out front, idiot.

    • SoJB@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      Damn life must be hard with such a low cognitive potential. My condolences.