On the 7th year anniversary of Rob Ford admitting to smoking crack, we look back at Calvin's comments to the Toronto Sun.
Toronto 2014 was a simpler time in Toronto, when our biggest news story was our crack smoking mayor. This Wayback Wednesday, we revisit this scandal in a Toronto Sun article featuring our very own Calvin Barry.
Full article test:
TORONTO - Punch drunk from revelation after revelation, there is one over arching question that seems to be ricocheting around the city.
With all the damning information that has emerged, why have no charges been laid against Mayor Rob Ford?
In these last tumultuous days alone, the imploding mayor has made some startling confessions: he’s smoked crack cocaine, he’s purchased illegal drugs during the last two years and he has indeed driven under the influence of alcohol.
And those are just his self-reported admissions of breaking the law. There are still the many other alleged episodes reported by Ford’s ex-staffers in explosive police interviews made public this week.
In these recently uncensored pages, there are at least two disturbing witness accounts of former staffers being in Ford’s vehicle while he was allegedly driving after consuming alcohol.
In the late spring of 2012, Jennifer Dwyer arrived at the mayor’s home to accompany him to an event. According to the court document, she texted another Ford employee to tell him the mayor was “impaired, driving very fast and that she did not know where she was going. Dwyer was scared in the vehicle.”
Former aide Chris Finkel told police he was a passenger in Ford’s Escalade on the way home from one of his high school football practices in the fall of 2012 when the mayor pulled over, grabbed a mickey of vodka out of an LCBO bag and in the space of two minutes, proceeded to chug it down between gulps of Gatorade. Ford then continued on his merry way.
Fickel was alarmed enough to wisely get out of the car. He said he regrets not reporting the incident.
Chief of Staff Earl Provost told investigators Ford was so intoxicated on the night of March 17, 2012 that he insisted on taking him home in a cab. But when the mayor got there, he got into his SUV and nearly struck the taxi as he speeded away.
The police themselves had Ford under surveillance this summer during Project Brazen — which is an interesting moniker in retrospect — and watched him having a boozy lunch before getting back behind the wheel “under the influence of alcohol and or drug but not to the state of impairment.”
How could they know that if they didn’t bother to pull him over?
“If #RobFord won’t resign, how much evidence is needed to press charges given his drinking & driving, drug use & other criminal acts?” asks Robert Zaichowski on Twitter.
How much indeed?
The mayor has even dared them. “If I did something illegal then arrest me,” Ford said in speaking to a radio interviewer 10 days ago. “Obviously, I haven’t.”
Police Chief Bill Blair will only say that his officers conduct their investigations and then place the evidence they gather before the Crown attorney to decide if charges are laid — which seems rather disingenuous considering police arrest people all the time using their own discretion.
But former Crown Calvin Barry explains that while “a lot of it is embarrassing and humiliating” there really isn’t enough here to make a charge stick against the mayor.
The allegations of drunk driving are simply hearsay, accusations made to police long after the fact. There’s no officer who stopped him, smelled alcohol or asked for a breath test. “You need evidence of impairment,” said Barry, now a defence lawyer. “Within hours, all the evidence evaporates.”
What about the admission of buying illegal drugs? Barry says a vague confession isn’t enough: the person would have to be specific about what kind of drug, when and where it was purchased. Police would have to have it tested to prove that it was really a narcotic and not some other substance. “We don’t have any of that here,” he said.
A current Crown attorney agreed, saying he also hasn’t seen enough to warrant a criminal charge. “There’s a very high threshold,” explained the prosecutor, who didn’t want his name used. “There’s no case here that you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”
But this Crown also predicts that may change in the near future.
“There’s some kind of play going on,” he said. “There must be something in the works. I can’t imagine this is the end of the show here.”
Full article test:
TORONTO - Punch drunk from revelation after revelation, there is one over arching question that seems to be ricocheting around the city.
With all the damning information that has emerged, why have no charges been laid against Mayor Rob Ford?
In these last tumultuous days alone, the imploding mayor has made some startling confessions: he’s smoked crack cocaine, he’s purchased illegal drugs during the last two years and he has indeed driven under the influence of alcohol.
And those are just his self-reported admissions of breaking the law. There are still the many other alleged episodes reported by Ford’s ex-staffers in explosive police interviews made public this week.
In these recently uncensored pages, there are at least two disturbing witness accounts of former staffers being in Ford’s vehicle while he was allegedly driving after consuming alcohol.
In the late spring of 2012, Jennifer Dwyer arrived at the mayor’s home to accompany him to an event. According to the court document, she texted another Ford employee to tell him the mayor was “impaired, driving very fast and that she did not know where she was going. Dwyer was scared in the vehicle.”
Former aide Chris Finkel told police he was a passenger in Ford’s Escalade on the way home from one of his high school football practices in the fall of 2012 when the mayor pulled over, grabbed a mickey of vodka out of an LCBO bag and in the space of two minutes, proceeded to chug it down between gulps of Gatorade. Ford then continued on his merry way.
Fickel was alarmed enough to wisely get out of the car. He said he regrets not reporting the incident.
Chief of Staff Earl Provost told investigators Ford was so intoxicated on the night of March 17, 2012 that he insisted on taking him home in a cab. But when the mayor got there, he got into his SUV and nearly struck the taxi as he speeded away.
The police themselves had Ford under surveillance this summer during Project Brazen — which is an interesting moniker in retrospect — and watched him having a boozy lunch before getting back behind the wheel “under the influence of alcohol and or drug but not to the state of impairment.”
How could they know that if they didn’t bother to pull him over?
“If #RobFord won’t resign, how much evidence is needed to press charges given his drinking & driving, drug use & other criminal acts?” asks Robert Zaichowski on Twitter.
How much indeed?
The mayor has even dared them. “If I did something illegal then arrest me,” Ford said in speaking to a radio interviewer 10 days ago. “Obviously, I haven’t.”
Police Chief Bill Blair will only say that his officers conduct their investigations and then place the evidence they gather before the Crown attorney to decide if charges are laid — which seems rather disingenuous considering police arrest people all the time using their own discretion.
But former Crown Calvin Barry explains that while “a lot of it is embarrassing and humiliating” there really isn’t enough here to make a charge stick against the mayor.
The allegations of drunk driving are simply hearsay, accusations made to police long after the fact. There’s no officer who stopped him, smelled alcohol or asked for a breath test. “You need evidence of impairment,” said Barry, now a defence lawyer. “Within hours, all the evidence evaporates.”
What about the admission of buying illegal drugs? Barry says a vague confession isn’t enough: the person would have to be specific about what kind of drug, when and where it was purchased. Police would have to have it tested to prove that it was really a narcotic and not some other substance. “We don’t have any of that here,” he said.
A current Crown attorney agreed, saying he also hasn’t seen enough to warrant a criminal charge. “There’s a very high threshold,” explained the prosecutor, who didn’t want his name used. “There’s no case here that you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt.”
But this Crown also predicts that may change in the near future.
“There’s some kind of play going on,” he said. “There must be something in the works. I can’t imagine this is the end of the show here.”
