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.
Police officers also have to follow the law. Only in specific circumstances to they get to break certain very specific laws, like drive through a red light.
They’re police officers, they are supposed to give the right example, ALWAYS. They’re supposed to at least try to be better than the rest of us. Parking where it’s dangerous can’t be just waved away with a pretext like “I need quick access tpy car”