Earlier this week Toronto police attended at a high rise apartment building in the northwest end of the city. The police were responding to what is becoming an all too common report of shots being fired. While the police were outside the building, someone on a 21st floor balcony began throwing beer bottles at the officers. One bottle hit a rookie female officer in the head, causing a concussion. Had the bottle hit her head at another angle, more serious injuries or even death could have ensued.
Police determined the apartment that the projectiles were thrown from and arrested a man and his 15-year-old girlfriend. a warrant was issued for another man, 24-year-old Khamidi Ferdinand, who was described by police as armed and dangerous. In 2003 Ferdinand was charged with the attempted murder of two police officers who were attempting to arrest him. Those charges were dismissed after a judge found that his Charter rights had been violated and evidence was excluded.
Police later obtained a search warrant for the apartment and recovered a large quantity of cash, 100 grams of cocaine, and several weapons including a submachine gun.
When reporting this story, the cop-hating Toronto Star ran it under the headline of "Prank sparks major drug, arms seizure." Prank? That headline was par for the course for a newspaper that views people like the bottle-thrower as a poor victim of society and the cops as oppressors, out to get the downtrodden minorities that make up a significant portion of the population in this area of the city. The Star obviously thinks that throwing a bottle that could have killed a police officer was nothing more than a bit of mischievous fun; a harmless trick. Hehehe.
The fact that The Toronto Star would think that this incident was not serious is hardly surprising. However what was shocking was the headline that appeared in the Toronto Sun. The Sun, which is considered to be a right of centre, law and order newspaper ran the story under the headline, "Silly stunt leads to gun stash". although it may be splitting hairs, referring to pelting police with bottles from the 21st floor of an apartment building as a "silly stunt" seems worse than referring to it as a "prank". No doubt those at the Sun, who have never seen the imposition of a criminal sentence that was long enough, wouldn’t have thought it was just a "silly stunt" if the bottles had been aimed at them.
There is perhaps some humour in the way that those who were in possession of illegal firearms and drugs drew attention to themselves. Even so, that in no way justifies describing the events leading to the injury to the rookie officer as a "prank" or a "stunt". The headline writers at the Star and the Sun should be ashamed of themselves.
Both the National Post and the Globe and Mail reported the incident in their Toronto sections, using headlines that appropriately reflected the seriousness of what had taken place.