Policing a hidden city
TTC's unarmed special constables carry out a fine job that's truly mind-boggling
By JOE WARMINGTON
It's a fast-moving underground city of 1.4 million.
That's a lot of people to be policed each day by just nine unarmed uniformed cops and a handful of officers working undercover. But with just 58 sworn TTC special constables on staff that's the way it is most days for the subway and all of the bus and streetcar routes.
It's mind-boggling. It's just as much a crime as the amount they investigate. At least, thanks to city council's financial commitment, the hiring process has already begun for 21 new officers this year. The TTC board deserves praise too.
LONG OVERDUE
It's much needed and long overdue. "If we weren't down here it would be utter chaos," says Mike Twigg, a former Mountie who has been working as a TTC special constable for 12 years. "There is so much going on. We are dealing with weapons all the time."
His partner yesterday was Dave Weatherbee, a former Canadian Pacific railway cop, who has been with the TTC nine years. These first-rate men have seen it all in 30 years each of policing -- murders, rapes, drugs, suicides, fights, stabbings, shootings, train derailments, bomb threats and fires -- and they've saved some lives too. We should listen to them.
If they or their colleagues are ever faced with an armed thug, they won't be able to match his or her firepower. You might not want to be a customer riding the TTC on that day -- unless you have your own gun or bullet- proof vest.
A lot of people around the TTC are afraid to offend a guy like TTC boss Howard Moscoe because he huffs and puffs and spouts off at will. He also wields a lot of power.
This week was no different. When Councillor Bill Saundercook, a fellow TTC commissioner, called for the special constables to have firearms, Moscoe said, "We don't want to turn the TTC into an armed camp."
The problem is on some days it already is. But the wrong guys have the guns. The comment, for me, was right up there with Moscoe's famous "the terrorists first would have to find where Toronto is before they attacked it" rant.
The transit cops say they run into about three illegal guns a month on average. They have also seen riders and operators slain or badly wounded. Many of us have. So has Howard. Even this week a sawed-off shotgun and handgun were intercepted at the Dupont station. On Jan. 12 the TTC cops took down a man with what turned out to be a replica 9-mm handgun, fully loaded with blanks. It looked real and scared the heck out of everybody.
"And we take knives off people every day," Weatherbee said.
What else would you expect in a city of 1.4 million? The bad guys are armed. The good guys aren't. It's craziness. "They wouldn't let workers use a jackhammer without eye protection but expect us to go out and deal with hardened criminals," said one officer.
These men and women deserve better. If you can justify safe injection junkie sites you can entertain properly equipping and staffing our cops. Brinks guards are armed to carry money, and you could argue the cargo on the TTC is just as precious. Some on council get it.
"After spending three hours with these guys, I would not want to do this job," Saundercook told Sun city hall bureau chief Zen Ruryk.
It is dangerous. Just yesterday the cops were investigating the sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl at Kennedy station and I heard for the first time ever that one of the 9/11 hijackers had been queried by the transit cops on the subway on May 2, 2001.
TERRORIST ON BOARD
Several sources said the terrorist, who was believed to be in the second plane to hit the World Trade Center, was staying in Parkdale. "He had a Florida licence and the officer did a contact card on him that was later asked for by the FBI," one source said.
If this is accurate, and no one at the TTC was denying it, then this is one terrorist who found our subway system.
The point is big things happen on the TTC and with a very small staff they do a terrific job of dealing it. There are not enough pats on the back for the crime prevention they do, the mental health patients they help and how they keep order and protect all of those people and all of that expensive equipment.
"From a policing standpoint they are very professional," said TTC transit patrol Deputy Chief Fergie Reynolds -- a Toronto Police acting inspector on secondment.
They are good cops, sworn officers who have all the same authority as Toronto Police. They earn the same pay but what they don't have, as ridiculous as it seems, is the same equipment.
They make arrests of armed people without being armed themselves. Sadly, when one of these special constables gets murdered in the line of duty some fat cat on council will become a proponent of arming them.
Why wait for it to happen? Equip them now and pay for it with the 12.25% raise Moscoe and his friends tried to sneak through last year for themselves. They'd sure appreciate it and so would their families, who are not crazy about their loved ones being unarmed in Toronto's underground city of 1.4 million.
http://torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2006/01/21/1404678-sun.html
