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.
As they order, their vehicle appears to be parked in a no-parking zone on Berkeley Street.
When the officers return to their vehicle with drinks in hand, the citizen, who filmed the encounter, asks the officers if they are legally allowed to park in the area.
While one officer says he “doesn’t know,” the other appears to concede that they were parked in a no-parking zone.
“I get where you’re coming from, but at the end of the day, like, we have to work 11 hours, we need caffeine,” she said.
- Watch the video in the player above
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.
In an email to CP24, Toronto police confirmed that its Professional Standards Unit is investigating the incident.
“While we can't speak to the specifics of the incident captured in the video, we acknowledge the officer's response was not appropriate,” they said.
Neither officer has been identified.
In an interview with CP24 Tuesday afternoon, Toronto Police Association President Jon Reid accused the individual who filmed the encounter of “baiting” the officers into the now-viral interaction.
“We’ve had countless examples recently of officers being video taped, being treated very, very poorly. And I’ll be honest, it gets frustrating. And I can only assume that maybe this was a very human reaction on the part of this officer,” Reid said, noting that he had not seen the video in full.
“I think people have to show a little more respect for the police officers from the point of view of general day-to-day interactions,” he added.
The account that published the video has previously posted approximately a dozen videos showing instances of alleged police misconduct.
With files from Beatrice Vaisman
