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.
Fair, but I’m pretty anti-cop and this incident feels like small potatoes.
Maybe. But if the shoe was on the other foot, ie: someone was giving the cops the finger, well … you know the cops likely would have done something about it.
Cops can kill people at the drop of a hat. Therefore they should be held to a higher standard.
This is a guiding principle I believe in, so good point, I hadn’t thought of that here.