Shocking News:Black Action Defence Committee Suing Toronto police for $65 Million Dollars!!!
Toronto Police Services Board Chair Alok Mukherjee has made recommendations on changes to carding, to be discussed at a public meeting Monday Nov. 18.
By: Jim Rankin Feature reporter, Patty Winsa News reporter, Published on Sat Nov 16 2013
A proposed class-action lawsuit seeks $65 million in damages and other remedies from Toronto police for alleged racial profiling practices and documenting of citizens.
The suit, filed Friday by the Black Action Defence Committee, comes in advance of a special Toronto Police Services Board meeting to be held Monday on the controversial police practice of carding — encounters where police question citizens and document personal details in stops that typically involve no arrest or charge.
Police Chief Bill Blair and the civilian police services board are named as defendants in the suit, which alleges police and the board have failed to adequately address a problem that has impacted blacks and other minority groups for decades.
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The committee seeks to have the suit certified as a class action, and have itself named as the representative plaintiff, but it estimates there are hundreds and “perhaps thousands” of citizens who would fit into the class.
“The Plaintiff believes the only way to litigate and seek remedies to uproot the acknowledged scourge of racial profiling and carding is a frontal attack” like a class-action suit, reads the statement of claim. “There is no other effective way.”
The suit alleges police and the board “have failed to prevent the violation of the equality rights of African-Canadian residents of Toronto and Ontario,” resulting in discrimination under the Charter.
Police have not had a chance to respond to the proposed suit. They defend the practice of carding citizens as a valuable investigative tool that allows investigators to make links between people and places, and say they target areas where violent crime is taking place.
But they also have acknowledged carding interactions with citizens can harm their relationship with the public.
There has been talk of a class-action lawsuit on the issue for decades, said Toronto lawyer Munyonzwe Hamalengwa, who filed the suit on behalf of the committee and spoke on its behalf.
After many reports by academics, the media and court decisions, the police and board “haven’t done anything to address this at all,” so the committee is hoping a class-action lawsuit will allow for a “holistic comprehensive judicial remedy” to carding and racial profiling.
“The black community has now reached a point where talking has been going on, not much has been happening, so it’s time for action,” said Hamalengwa.
In addition to monetary damages, the action, which has not been certified or proven in court, seeks remedies that include:
A declaration that police have breached the Charter and an order requiring them to “desist from engaging in and condoning racial profiling” of blacks and other “colourful” minorities.
A declaration that racial profiling is a criminal offence.
A written police apology to the committee and “all African-Canadians for their being targets and victims of racial profiling and carding.”
Mandatory reading for officers, including books on racial profiling, the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s 2003 report “Paying the price: The human cost of racial profiling,” the 1995 report of the Ontario Commission on Systemic Racism in the Ontario Criminal Justice System, and several Toronto Star series on carding, including 2003 report “Paying the price: The human cost of racial profiling,” published in September.
Class-action lawsuits in Canada can be expensive and lengthy and orders difficult to come by, but as Toronto lawyer Murray Klippenstein recently told the Star in a story about carding, they can prompt change.
“By declaring a practice to be illegal and awarding a significant amount of money to a group of people as compensation, the incentive or pressure to change the practice becomes pretty substantial,” he said.
The Star has published four series — in 2002, 2010, 2012 and 2013 — that examined Toronto police arrest and stop data and found patterns that shown disproportionate treatment for blacks, and to a lesser extent, “brown”-skinned people.
Between 2008 and 2012, police filled out 1.8 million contact cards, involving over a million individuals, and entered their personal details into a database.
A Star analysis showed that blacks over that period were more likely than whites to be stopped, questioned and documented in each of the city’s 70-plus police patrol zones. The likelihood increased in areas that were predominantly white.
On Monday, the special public police services board meeting on carding, scheduled to be held at city hall, will address recommendations from both the police and board chair Alok Mukherjee to change the way police card and interact with the public. Mukherjee has said the Star’s latest findings on contact cards “devastating” and “unacceptable.”
While there has been an acknowledgement by Blair and the board that profiling exists and that carding is problematic, the lawsuit alleges little has changed to deal with it.
Although no individuals are named as plaintiffs, Hamalengwa expects many will come forward and take part.
Why Are Canadian Media Ignoring Rob Ford White Skin Privilege In Crack Scandal?
The issue of race has been ignored by the Canadian media in relation to the Rob Ford crack scandal. The question is why?
Canadians are not comfortable discussing race issues. Canadians pretend race is an American issue it is
not a problem in Canada. There is a facade that Canadians are not prejudiced or racist.
Canadian culture is indeed racist, but the racism is more covert not overt. Canadians engender this mythology race should be ignored.
An African American website, Uptown magazine has published an article about Toronto’s trainwreck crack smoking mayor and the subject of white male skin privilege. Why hasn’t the Toronto Star published an article about this issue? Where is the Globe & Mail editorial?
It seems to me the silence about Ford’s white privilege speaks volumes about Canadian society. By pretending race is not a factor in this crack scandal, the Canadian press are also a part of the quandary.
Ford’s whiteness is an integral part of the scandal. The shock and the horror Canadians have is, due to the fact Ford is white middle class. Since Ford is a public figure, and he’s hanging out with drug dealers, gang bangers, and other underworld people this upsets the Canadian media.
Smoking crack is associated with subaltern people not rich white folks like Rob Ford.
The lack of press about the ways in which white privilege works is due to the fact white people control the Canadian media.
The privilege being a white man grants Ford the ability to get a pass for his deleterious behaviour.
Does anyone honestly believe if Ford was a man of colour his supporters would be so forgiving? Ford’s white constituents give him a pass for his unprofessional behaviour because he is a white man. People of colour are judged at a higher standard than white folks. The people supporting Ford have sympathy for him because they identify with him.
The paucity of news or television broadcasts about the issue of race is not surprising since Canadians have polite bigotry. Canadians are polite racists, they are just bigots in private not public.
Link: http://uptownmagazine.com/2013/11/white-privilege-torontos-crack-smoking-mayor/
Robyn Doolittle Talks About Rob Ford Crack Video Homophobic & Racist Comments.
The Rob Ford Circus at Toronto City Hall about the crack video has ignored an important component, and that is what Ford actually said on the video. According to Robyn Doolittle a Toronto Star reporter who watched the video Ford uttered racist and homophobic comments. Ford called Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau a “fag” he also made a disparaging comment about “fucking minorities”. Is this what the people of Toronto want a racist and homophobic mayor?
Two Black Teenage Boys Shot To Death In Toronto, Yet I Don’t Care.
On August 23rd 2013, two teenage boys O’She Doyles-Whyte 16, and Kwame Duodu, 15 where gunned down and brutally murdered in Jane and Finch. For people who don’t know Jane and Finch is a notorious crime infested neighbourhood in Toronto. Jane and Finch has a history of violence. Whyte and Duodu are black, and I must admit, when I first heard of their deaths I was ambivalent about it. I feel bad for saying this, but I just kind of shrugged my shoulders.
I guess I feel apathetic, if you live in Toronto you will know what I mean. There have been too many times over the years of sad news stories about young black males being shot to death in Jane and Finch. It is like a broken record. I am so exhausted hearing about these tragedies that I just tune out.
Of course, it is very sad that two teenage boys are dead but I feel conflicted about the violence in Jane and Finch. Am I supposed to care just because I am a black Canadian? I don’t live in Jane and Finch and I wouldn’t want anyone I love or care about to live there either. Should I feel sad, that there are too many tragic news stories about young black males being shot to death in Toronto?
Whenever, gun violence takes place in Toronto, the white media have this propensity to insist, that black Canadian people we are all supposed to care. Do white people care, when a white person dies in Toronto? Why should I as an individual, who just happens to be black, care about young black boys dying? Why should the actions of a few represent that of an entire race? It doesn’t make sense to me?
Why? Why should I care about black parents that are irresponsible, they don’t want to improve their lives, they raise their children in violent neighbourhoods?
Why don’t black parents teach their teenage sons to stay away from gang bangers and drug dealers? These two boys probably knew people who were involved in a gang. Why don’t black parents do more? One of the things my parents taught me when I was young is to NOT ASSOCIATE OR BE AROUND BAD PEOPLE! My mother always says, if you weren’t with the crows who have been found you would be ALL SAFE AND SOUND! If you don’t associate, talk to, hang around, gang bangers or drug dealers then you have a better chance of staying SAFE and ALIVE.
Now, people are saying the two teens were not a part of a gang. However, perhaps this is true both boys were not in a gang, but maybe they were associated with one or knew people in it? I just find it bizarre in the city of Toronto, that people would just randomly shoot and kill two teenage boys. Teenage boys need their fathers in their lives, because a father helps a boy to grow up to become a man.
I talked to my sister today about this tragedy, she said one of the reasons she lives in the suburbs with her son is to avoid these kinds of tragedies. My sister was blunt she said she would never raise her son around poor blacks.
Now, some might argue my sister is a hater, or a racist, or an elitist, but I see her cogent argument. In Jane and Finch, there is a cycle of violence, that seems to have no ending. My sister said she worries about her ten year old son, she doesn’t want him growing up in a dangerous environment. A violent place such as Jane and Finch has an aura of poverty and unhappiness.
I have to admit, if I had a child I wouldn’t want him growing up around poor blacks either.
My sister and I next we questioned, why would a black mother raise her son in Jane and Finch? Why? Everyone knows Jane and Finch is a dangerous neighbourhood filled with despair and violence.
I saw the family and friends on the news the other day crying about the two dead boys. Of course, these people are black and poor. Now I understand, due to circumstances, things happen in life. However, I wonder, where were the black fathers in this situation? Where are the fathers of these teenage boys?
The mainstream Canadian media, will report these tragedies of young black boys dying in the streets of Toronto. However, it is time for the black community to have some real talk. Why are black Canadians so afraid in Toronto to have a serious discussion about gun violence? I am serious. Why, are young black boys dying?
I am apathetic, to the deaths of these two teenage boys, I just feel like black parents need to be more accountable. Yes, violence can occur anywhere in Toronto. However, I just feel some black parents are not doing enough to raise their sons. Why would any black mother raise her children in Jane and Finch? It just seems shocking to me I am perplexed about it.
Breaking News: Toronto Police Officer James Forcillo Charged With Second Degree Murder of Sammy Yatim.
Officer charged with murder in Sammy Yatim streetcar shooting
A Toronto police officer has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Sammy Yatim, the 18-year-old shot and killed in a streetcar last month.
A statement issued Monday from Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit — the province’s police watchdog — says the actions of Const. James Forcillo in the downtown Toronto incident this summer justify a charge of second-degree murder.
Forcillo, the officer who fired the shots, had been suspended from duty during the investigation.
Yatim was on a streetcar stopped on Dundas Street West, near Bellwoods Avenue, when he was shot dead in the early minutes of July 27.
Witnesses have said that Yatim was holding a knife while inside the empty streetcar.
Sammy Yatim, 18, was fatally shot by police aboard a Toronto streetcar in July. His sister Sarah tweeted this picture on Saturday with the caption, ‘Never forgotten… At least not to me.’ Sammy Yatim, 18, was fatally shot by police aboard a Toronto streetcar in July. His sister Sarah tweeted this picture on Saturday with the caption, ‘Never forgotten… At least not to me.’ (Twitter)
Nine shots can be heard on cellphone videos that captured the incident, following shouts for Yatim to drop a knife.
The final six shots appear to come after he had already fallen to the floor of the streetcar.
The shooting was recorded on video by several sources and viewed more than a million times on YouTube, galvanizing public anger and leading to a street protest that drew hundreds of people to the site of the shooting.
In addition to the SIU investigation, Toronto police Chief Bill Blair has said retired justice Dennis O’Connor will lead a separate review of police procedures, use of force and police response to emotionally disturbed people in the wake of Yatim’s death.
Ontario ombudsman André Marin has also launched an investigation that will probe what kind of direction the provincial government provides to police for defusing conflict situations.
The Toronto Police Association has urged the public not to jump to conclusions in the case, and told CBC News it is disappointed but not surprised by the charges against Forcillo.
Family to release statement
Shortly after news of the charges broke, Yatim’s sister tweeted, “The SIU charged the cop with 2nd degree murder!!! Good morning JUSTICE.”
The family is refusing requests for interviews, but is expected to release a statement to the media by 4 p.m. ET Monday.
Forcillo has spent six years as a member of Toronto’s police force, splitting that time as both as a uniformed constable and at court services at Old City Hall.
The SIU statement said Forcillo will surrender Tuesday, when he is also due to appear in court. The SIU statement said the location of the arrest won’t be disclosed because Forcillo has been the subject of threats.
Toronto Star Article: Ex Police Officer Alleges Toronto Police Force Is Racist Against Young Black Men!!!!
Former Toronto police officer Garnette Rose has launched a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario alleging he was discriminated against and had no choice but to leave the police service.
By Jim Rankin / Toronto Star
Former Toronto police officer Garnette Rose has launched a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario alleging he was discriminated against and had no choice but to leave the police service.
As a young Toronto police officer, Garnette Rose had a plan to work hard, gradually move up the ranks and perhaps return to the intelligence unit where he got his start with wiretaps — and his Jamaican background was an asset.
From 2003, the year he joined the service, to 2005, Rose was a “proofer,” listening in on and deciphering wiretaps that involved targets with Jamaican accents. He was the ears on homicide cases, a multi-jurisdictional drug bust and high-profile gang operations.
Today, his career as a police officer is in tatters and his slight Jamaican accent is at the heart of an extraordinary hearing before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, where Rose, 36, alleges he was ostracized for not “toeing the line” — an unwritten police code of silence, or looking the other way. He was also, following an injury, recommended by a supervisor for a “light duty” internal position that he wanted in an email that showed “blatant” discrimination, he says in his complaint.
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“PC Garnette Rose … is a young officer currently restricted as a result of a hand injury,” reads the email. “He presents very well, and although possessed of a very slight Jamaican accent, he is very well spoken.”
Rose flagged the email to human resources and later, to a deputy chief, triggering an investigation. A half-year later, after he felt he could no longer safely work as a police officer, he filed the human rights complaint.
For Rose, it was the culmination of a yearlong history of “unfair” and “discriminatory” events. “I believe this happened to me because … I am Jamaican and have an accent; Because, I stood for the truth; Because I challenge the negative perceptions from Senior Staff,” he writes in his complaint, filed in June 2011.
Police disagree, arguing in a reply to Rose’s complaint that the email was an isolated incident, with a “prompt and thorough investigation, followed by appropriate disciplinary measures.” There is no proof of a pattern of discrimination and other “alleged acts” are factually wrong or the result of Rose’s own doing, the service argues.
“I became psychologically dysfunctional and frankly scared for my safety.”
Garnette Rose
Describing feelings after email that mentioned accent, in his human rights complaint
The Toronto Police Service is named in about 30 human rights applications a year. But it is rare that a complaint comes from one of its own. Just how rare, police will not say.
One reason for the rarity could be there are no problems. Another, as Rose believes, is there are problems but the act of complaining about superiors is career suicide.
Rose, currently unemployed, is seeking $1 million in damages.
This story is also extraordinary in that it is public at all. It’s based on Rose’s allegations and police versions of events, as laid out in documents connected to his human rights complaint, which he shared with the Star. The documents include police replies, police statements and summaries of anticipated evidence in the hearing, which is in the early stages.
The job
Becoming a Toronto police officer was a particular achievement for Garnette Rose.
Rose served as a cadet while in school. When he was 17, his family moved to Scarborough from Jamaica and he saw policing as something he was made for. He wanted to help bridge the gap between blacks and police, he says.
Since Bill Blair became chief in 2005, there has been a notable increase in diversity in new hires and efforts to root out racism within the service, which has been held up as a model. Two of the three current deputy chiefs are black. Rose saw the force as a place where he could excel.
After joining in 2003 at 26 and spending two years in intelligence, Rose spent time as a special court constable and at east downtown’s 51 Division, which includes Regent Park and is thought of as an excellent area to gain experience. In 2008, after a year there, he moved in a job swap to 53 Division, which includes Yorkville and Forest Hill.
He also started a family. He and his wife, a civilian Toronto police employee, would have two sons before their marriage blew up.
Two women
On April 25, 2010, Rose had finished a special evening shift at the Canadian National Exhibition, when alone and in a marked cruiser, he spotted a woman driving and texting. He pulled her over, and without his cruiser camera turned on, cautioned the woman.
Rose handed her a ticket instruction but no ticket. Inside, he included his police business card and personal cellphone number.
Two nights later, this time with a partner, Rose made a call at a building and on the way out had a conversation with another woman that wasn’t about police business. “During that conversation, he obtained her phone number and entered it into his personal cell phone,” police say in their reply to Rose’s human rights complaint. He called the number to confirm it was correct. He sent a text message a few days later. It was not returned.
Those two incidents resulted in station-level disciplinary action and a loss of 24 hours’ pay from Rose’s lieu time bank. It is one of the highest penalties that can be imposed outside of a police disciplinary tribunal hearing.
Rose, in an interview and in his complaint, acknowledges it was a bad idea to exchange numbers but says it was innocent.
In his complaint, Rose alleges the two women, who are white, knew each other and that one was the daughter of a Toronto sergeant at another police division. Rose alleges the sergeant was friends with Insp. Bruce Johnston, a senior supervisor at his own division. Rose says he heard from colleagues that Johnston was going to “take a chunk” out of him over it all.
Police do not address or deny these specific allegations in their reply, other than stating in a non-specific way that there are factual errors in the complaint.
Rose further alleges that the disciplinary action was started by Johnston, who would later write the “Jamaican accent” email.
Johnston, in material filed with the tribunal, denies Rose’s allegations and says he played no role in the investigation or penalty.
The Star could not directly reach Johnston — or Staff Insp. Larry Sinclair, then unit commander of 53 Division — for comment but did ask a police spokesperson, a police lawyer and the new unit commander at their former station to extend to them an opportunity to comment further.
Through a lawyer, Sinclair declined to comment. Johnston could not be reached.
Following Rose’s acceptance of the penalty, Sinclair put a scheduled promotion on hold to “ensure that there was no further misconduct.”
By then, Rose had been placed on light duty after a motor accident.
Incident at court
Tensions rose further after a dispute over Rose’s testimony as a witness in an unrelated case.
An investigation later revealed evidence collected did not substantiate the allegations against Rose, but police concluded he hadn’t properly prepared to testify and gave inconsistent testimony, and “failed to adopt his own memo book notes.”
As a result, police sent Rose for remedial training, which he found “horribly demeaning.”
“I felt stupid and useless,” Rose writes in his complaint. “I knew that this was their punishment for not following the Code that I must maintain the same story no matter what. I knew that I was not being treated equally.”
By fall 2010, Rose started looking into a transfer out of 53 Division, without success.
Police defend the remedial action and deny Rose’s contention that the court incident is part of a pattern of discrimination.
The email
The internal posting that landed on the desk of Insp. Bruce Johnston’s desk Oct. 21, 2010, was for a temporary social media job. Speaking wouldn’t be a main component.
Johnston, who was filling in for Sinclair, thought of Rose, who was still on light duty. In an email recommendation the next day, Johnston referred to Rose’s accent and Jamaican heritage.
Rose, who was copied on the email, says he found it “devastating,” and flagged it a week later to human resources. He heard nothing back.
On Dec. 2, Rose forwarded the email to Deputy Chief Peter Sloly, who also has Jamaican roots. On Dec. 15, a manager in the diversity management unit spoke to Johnston about it.
An internal investigation concluded a charge of misconduct was warranted. The penalty was a reprimand, one of the least severe penalties that can be imposed under the Police Services Act.
For his part, Johnston told an investigator he went through the email with Rose and “had the impression that he was actually good with this and enjoyed the fact that we were supporting him in this position … It wasn’t my intention to nominate him for a job and then insult him … the whole point (was that) I thought he would do well at this.”
Why the accent reference? He said he did it to, in the words of the investigator, “shed light on the fact that PC Rose had an accent, and if PC Rose became stressed, his accent may become thicker and difficult to understand.”
The service argues the email played no role in determining who would get the posting. (It went to an officer, also on light duties, with a journalism degree.)
Rose was left with a perception that he had become the outsider.
“The very heart of policing is relying on each other and having senior White officers as well as other white officers ostracizing me, informed me that it would just be a matter of time before something bad happened to me,” he wrote in his complaint.
“I became psychologically dysfunctional and frankly scared for my safety.”
“Wellness check”
By April 2011, Rose says he was afraid, depressed and his back hurt to the point he stayed home from work. A sergeant, a direct supervisor, phoned to see what was up
According to police, Rose sounded despondent.
Within a half-hour, the sergeant and another sergeant were at his doorstep.
The sergeants encouraged him to get help from the employee and family assistance program.
Rose found the visit intimidating; police insist it was solely out of concern for his well-being.
A staff sergeant declared him unfit to return to work until he got help. In two appointments Rose had with a service doctor, the doctor agreed Rose was unfit. Rose’s own doctor prescribed anti-depressants.
In a letter to Blair, dated May 25, 2011, Rose’s lawyer Osborne Barnwell argued Rose had been constructively dismissed. He said Rose was unable to cope with the job, had been discriminated against by senior staff and “been subject to reprisals.”
Barnwell proposed the service settle with Rose. When no package came and police declared him fit to return on modified duty at another division, Rose filed his rights complaint.
In addition to money, Rose seeks another “remedy.” He wants something done about “racism in the service” and says the highest-ranking officers are resistant to change.
Rose hasn’t worked as a police officer since April 2011. On July 19, 2011, he turned over his badge and warrant card, which the service took as his resignation.
The hearing
Under cross-examination by a city lawyer acting for police, Rose has twice lost it on the stand, becoming angry and frustrated by the line of questioning, which the adjudicator called “assertive but respectful.”
A psychotherapist of Rose’s choosing concluded he had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression.
Ross faces further psychiatric testing. No police witnesses have yet testified but their arguments are made clear in the material filed before the tribunal.
Asked to put this case into context, police spokesperson Mark Pugash instead said the Star must file a freedom of information request for numbers on officers who file human rights complaints.
In an emailed statement, Pugash added: “It is often the case that legal claims fail to be proved in court or before tribunals. Sadly, the Star rarely, if ever, tells their readers when particularly extravagant claims, claims they have printed, fail.”
Barnwell says police are fighting his client “tooth and nail, and are trying hard to discredit him,” in a case that should never have gone to a hearing.
“It makes no sense whatsoever,” he told the Star.
Rose, in an email to the Star the day he broke down on the stand, was despondent. He wrote that the police service had taken away his life.
Rose has created a Facebook page, with the title: Stop Racism Within The Toronto Police Service.
One of the first posts was a link to an article about Blair blasting officers for unacceptable behaviour. Blair has steadfastly said racism won’t be tolerated.
Rose’s psychiatric reports are due back at the tribunal by Aug. 17.
Blind Gossip: Young Woman Says CBC Radio Host Jian Ghomeshi Is Creepy & Preys On Young Women!!!
Creepy Canadian Come On
canada faceBG Note: This is a looong story published on XO Jane by a writer who had a bad date with a guy she describes as a “C-list Canadian celebrity”.
[XO Jane] I met a man I’ll call Keith at an outdoor concert in Toronto last year. I was sitting with a group of people, Jake Gyllenhaal among them (sorry for the name drop, but he factors into the story later), and Keith walked up to introduce himself to us.
I knew of Keith because he has a successful radio show in Canada. A lot of Canadians love him for his views, interviews, and radio voice.
As Keith schmoozed with the people around me, I enjoyed the concert and also tried to make Jake fall for me using telepathic love vibes. Just kidding. There were no love vibes, and the only feeling Jake had was annoyance after Keith arrived. He kept trying to talk to Jake, who wasn’t feeling his “I really want to get you on my show and maybe into your pants” vibe, so Keith soon turned his attention to me.
“Sorry, how do you pronounce your name again?” he said.
“Um, Carla,” I replied.
“Oh, I thought it was more complicated, like Carafalooota,” he said. I laughed.
A few minutes later, the concert was over, and my party and I left.
The next day, I sent Keith a public Twitter message saying it was nice to meet him. It was. I, like many Canadians, was a fan of his show.
Actually, truth be told, I’ve never listened to his show, but still, I appreciated him as a talented radio personality.
Keith wrote me a private message soon after saying he read some of my work online and really liked my writing. He also asked me if I’d like to join him to see Metric play the next night at the Opera House.
I’d always wanted to see Metric live, and I thought I might be able to make Keith my best gay friend in Toronto. I was still a newbie and needed friends. I also figured that the friendship might lead to exciting Toronto career opportunities down the line. He did say he liked my writing.
The next night, I met him at a wine bar for a quick drink before the show. When I walked in, I was greeted by both the overwhelming stench of his cologne and the sinking feeling that Keith was not, as I had assumed, gay. This wasn’t a friend date; it was a date, date –- at least to him.
He looked at me the way a creepy older man looks at a young, silly girl he’s going to buy a drink he’s planning to slip a roofie into. I didn’t know what to do. He was 15 years older than me, but what’s more, I found him totally unattractive and didn’t want to be on a date with him.
But I couldn’t just leave.
“So, you’re friends with Jake Gyllenhaal?” he asked.
“No. I met him yesterday and we talked about baseball for five minutes,” I said.
“Oh. He seems like a jerk, eh?” he said.
“I thought he was nice,” I said.
Nervous and trying to avoid eye contact with him, I proceeded to talk about nothing in particular for the next 20 minutes with such speed, he might have thought I had just done an eight ball in the bathroom.
He checked his phone approximately 35 times and mentioned the memoir he was writing about 10 times. Apparently, he was in a band when he was younger, or something. I wasn’t really paying attention.
Before my drink was finished, Keith rushed me out of the bar to get to the concert down the street.
In front of the small venue, he introduced me to a bunch of people he thought I would know.
“You’re meeting the who’s who of Canadian indie rock!” he whispered into my ear enthusiastically. I had no idea who they were, but most of them had cool beards. The way he introduced me, however, was disconcerting. I was being “presented,” in the same way Tom Cruise used to present Katie Holmes on red carpets. I did not like it.
I wanted to let him know I wasn’t into him, but he seemed like a harmless dork, and I didn’t want to embarrass him in front of his bearded friends.
As I talked to one of them, I’d look up every now and then to catch a glimpse of Keith staring at me intently with a strange smile on his face. He was giving me the heebie jeebies and, again, I wanted to leave.
But Metric. It’ll be fine once we’re inside, I thought, we’re just watching a concert.
There was no assigned seating, and we were standing on the balcony. As soon as the lights went down, and the first notes started playing, I felt a sweaty hand travel across the back of my dress and grab my ass.
That hand was Keith’s.
Shocked, I looked up at him like “WHAT?!” He looked back at me with sex eyes and smiled. Disgusted, I asked him to stop, and stepped away from him and his hand.
This is Metric playing the Opera House. Emily Haines, can you hear my heart beating like a hammer? HELP ME!
I figured he’d get the point since I moved, but instead, he followed me. I watched the concert intently, but he soon grabbed my hand to hold it.
His friends were right behind us, and they all smiled when I looked back. Despite my extreme discomfort, I felt I couldn’t tell Keith off, so I discreetly pulled my hand away, crossed my arms over my stomach and stared straight ahead.
When he started rubbing my back, I again told him to stop, and when he put his hand over my shoulders, I said I was hot and lifted it off.
“Oh yeah, you’re hot,” he replied.
Dying inside, I felt sad that not only had I lost interest in watching Metric, but they were also starting to sound like tainted torture music.
I was planning my exit strategy when Keith grabbed the strap my large purse and took it off my shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I said.
“Shhh,” he replied, placing my purse on the ground and slipping his arm around my waist to pull me closer.
“What the fuck?!” I said. “You don’t put a woman’s purse on the dirty ground.” Apparently, I have more respect for a leather purse from my mom than for my own body. Not really — but this was my breaking point.
“But it’s in the way,” he said. He seemed intrigued, and challenged, by my passionate reaction.
“I’ll be back.” I couldn’t take it anymore. Keith had gone from harmless dork to repulsive sexual predator.
I ran down the stairs and called my sister from the bathroom. “What do I do?” I was concerned that he would somehow ruin my fledgling career in Canadian media forever if I bailed on him, as stupid as that sounds.
“Get outta there,” my sister said. I wanted to. Desperately. Running down the stairs had given me a taste of the freedom that could so easily be mine if I just ran outside and never looked back. But I didn’t want to be rude, and I thought it best to leave on good terms.
(This is the part where I really want to go back in time and shake myself.)
I did what any good, failed Catholic girl plagued by a crippling sense of guilt would do: I lied.
“I have to go, I have a terrible headache — a migraine. I also have to work very early. Sorry,” I said, looking towards the EXIT sign with a renewed hopefulness that I hadn’t felt in hours.
“Oh no. I’ll drive you,” he said.
“NO! I mean, no. I don’t want to ruin the show for you. I’ll get a cab.”
“I can’t let you take a cab if you have a migraine,” he said, leading me down the stairs with a “concerned” creepy hand on the small of my back.
I insisted on taking a cab until I realized that he was walking me to his car, which was right outside.
All but defeated, I got into his car, pissed off that I was doing so, and stared out the window listlessly.
Even though I had a terrible fake migraine, he insisted on talking to me.
“Do you recognize the colors of my car?” he said.
“They are black and red. Like Spider-Man?” I said.
“Ha! No. That’s silly. They’re the colors of my show,” he laughed.
“But your show is on the radio, and I don’t listen to it,” I confessed. I was DONE.
“Did I tell you I’m writing a book?” he asked.
“Multiple times,” I said. “You can stop here.”
We were a block from my apartment and there was no way he was going to know my address.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” he said, unbuckling his seatbelt.
“No, you won’t,” I said. “Thank you for the concert and the ride. Have a good night.”
He leaned in and I avoided his lips by giving him a half-hearted hug, but he still managed to peck the side of my pursed mouth as I was turning to get out of the car. I urgently yanked on the door handle until the door sprang open, and scurried out.
Once I reached my front door, I started crying in shame. A thick layer of self-loathing had settled over my once-optimistic heart. Why had I handled the night that way? Why didn’t I tell him he was acting like as asshole and I only agreed to meet him because I, like the rest of Canada, thought he was gay? Why am I so passive in awkward situations? WHY? WHY? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
I had a hot shower to remove his gross cologne stench, which had stuck to me like an airborne virus.
The next morning, I awoke to a text from him.
“If you’re late for work, blame it on me 😉 ”
I didn’t reply to Keith’s text, thinking that he would take the hint; but based on past experience I should have known Keith does not a hint take.
As his messages became more and more pathetic, (e.g., “Did we break up already?”), I eventually confessed the truth and told him that I was sorry but I thought it was a friend date, not a real date, and I wasn’t interested.
To this, he replied: “Eeep! Totes diff. vibe from yest.” (He actually texted those words. Like that. To a girl he was interested in.)
Over the next two weeks, his texts begged me to give him another chance. He even went so far as to promise that he looks better with TV makeup on, like that would make a difference.
I felt sorry for him. Clearly being a C-list Canadian celebrity hadn’t afforded him any “game.”
He finally stopped texting, but every time his name came up in conversation, or I saw his face in an ad, I cringed.
In talking to my friends Crystal and Melissa, I found out that Keith has tried his same creepy-ass moves out on many other girls. He once lured a friend of theirs into a hotel room to “watch a movie,” and tried to sleep with her once she sat on the bed. She, too, had thought him harmless and gay beforehand.
This is me now. Hardened. Suspicious. More Lucille 1 than Lucille 2. I’ll stop making Arrested Development references now.
Two months later, I was walking down the street and passed a man who was wearing an offensive amount of Keith’s pungent cologne. Overcome by scent-memory nausea, I vomited into a nearby trashcan. A concerned older lady came up to me. “Are you pregnant, dear?” she asked.
“Only with disgust, thank God,” I said, smiling. She smiled back, perplexed.
And that was how I expelled the gross feelings left over from the worst “date” I’ve ever gone on.
Clues
Keith: is obviously Jian Ghomeshi radio host of CBC Q radio show
Clue 1: Ghomeshi radio show set is red and black.
Clue 2: Ghomeshi was once the lead singer of an indie rock group.
Clue 3: Ghomeshi is 46 years old he was born in 1967.
Clue 4: Ghomeshi has a gay persona, he isn’t gay but he gives off the vibe he’s a homosexual.
Clue 5: Ghomeshi wrote a book last year called 1982 about his youth.
Disappointing News: Gawker Editor Says Somali Drug Dealers Worried About Being Stereotyped & Rob Ford Crack Video Is Gone.
John Cook Today 5:43pm
Before the Rob
Ford
Crackstarter—our crowdfunding effort to purchase and publish a video of Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine—reached its $200,000 goal last month, we let everyone know that we had lost contact with the people who have custody of the video. At the end of last week, after a long silence, the video’s owner reached out to the intermediary we have been dealing with. He told him the video is “gone.”
Related
(Update) We Are Raising $200,000 to Buy and Publish the Rob Ford Crack Tape
As you may have heard, Rob
Ford
, the mayor of Toronto, smokes crack cocaine. We’ve seen a video of him smoking crack cocaine, and the people who … Read…
For Sale: A Video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Smoking Crack Cocaine
Rob Ford, Toronto’s conservative mayor, is a wild lunatic given to making bizarre racist pronouncements and randomly slapping refrigerator… Read…
What does that mean? We don’t really know. A few days after we posted our story about having viewed the video in a car in a parking lot in Toronto, the owner went silent. Two Toronto Star reporters had quickly followed our report, claiming to have seen the same video. Both Gawker and the Star reporters were introduced to the owner of the video by the same intermediary.
The attention surrounding the breaking of the story had two important consequences: First, the owner of the video became angry at us, and at the intermediary. The owner was trying to sell the video, but he apparently didn’t want or anticipate the media circus that erupted after the story broke. We decided to break it, with the consent of the intermediary, after a CNN reporter called one of Ford’s ex-staffers about the video and word started to get out. The CNN reporter had learned about the video after we confidentially reached out to the network in an effort to partner in purchasing it.
Our decision to publish was informed by 1) a desire to get ahead of any rival stories that the gossip mill might generate and 2) a fear that, once Ford was privately alerted to the existence of the video, he would start trying to track it down. That decision lit a match on this story that made it much more difficult—and maybe impossible—to get a deal done and bring the video to the light of day.
Complicating matters was the fact that the Star’s coverage contained several details—including the rough location where its reporters viewed the video, the rough location where it was purportedly recorded, a description of the intermediary’s line of work, the ethnicity of the intermediary and the owner, and physical details about the video owner’s appearance—that may have been helpful in identifying and locating the owner. Indeed, according to the Star and other outlets, Ford himself told his staff that the video could be found at a Toronto address—320 Dixon Rd.—near the location where the Star reporters wrote that they viewed it. (Whether he deduced that location—which may or may not be where the video was actually stored—from the Star’s coverage or would have known anyway, we can’t say.)
The second consequence was that Toronto’s tight-knit Somali ethnic community became angry. The Canadian media seized on the Star’s repeated description of the owners as “Somali men involved in the drug trade.” The story quickly became about Rob Ford and his “Somali crack dealers,” and the Star’s public editor subsequently criticized the paper for “going overboard” on the references to the Somali community. We don’t know for certain the citizenship or immigration status of the video’s owner, but shortly after the story broke, the intermediary told me: “We’re all Canadians.”
According to the intermediary, these two factors—a fear of being identified, and a strong desire from the Somali community to make the whole thing go away—led the owner of the video to go to ground and soured the owner’s relationship with the intermediary. I frankly find it difficult to believe that a crack dealer would be more responsive to the desires of his ethnic community than to a $200,000 bounty. But I have heard independently from others familiar with the goings-on in Toronto that leaders in its Somali community have determined who the owner is and brought intense pressure to bear on him and his family. Toronto’s “Little Mogadishu” neighborhood is located in the ward Rob Ford represented when he was a city councillor; though he is a conservative and a racist buffoon, I am told he has long-standing connections to Somali power brokers there.
Which brings us to this past Friday, when the intermediary called to tell me that he had finally heard from the owner. And his message was: “It’s gone. Leave me alone.” It was, the intermediary told me, a short conversation.
“It’s gone” could mean many things. It might mean that the video has been destroyed. It might mean that it has been handed over to Ford or his allies. It might mean that he intends to sell or give it to a Canadian media outlet. It might mean that the Toronto Police Department has seized it and plans to use it as evidence in a criminal investigation. It might mean that it has been transferred to the custody of Somali community leaders for safekeeping. It might be a lie. The intermediary doesn’t know. Neither do I.
I do know that Gawker is currently sitting on $184,689.81 collected via our Rob Ford Crackstarter. (That’s $201,254 raised in total, less $8,365.23 in fees extracted by PayPal, $8,043.96 taken by Indiegogo, and $155 in contributions raised that we have yet to receive.) It is obviously our hope that someone steps up to claim this money and provides us the video.
The intermediary has claimed that a copy of the video was made and taken outside Toronto for safekeeping. We don’t know if that’s true, or if it is, whether that copy is also “gone.” We can still imagine any number of scenarios in which this video comes to light. If you are reading this, and you have access to the video, and you like money, please email me at john@gawker.com.
If this doesn’t happen soon, we will—as we initially promised when we launched the campaign—select a Canadian nonprofit that addresses substance abuse issues to receive the money.
Don’t do crack.
Gayblackcanada 