As emergency crews and residents gathered at the scene of a double shooting in East York Saturday night, an officer could be seen sitting in his cruiser watching Hockey Night in Canada on the vehicle’s internal computer.
While gathering footage at the scene of the shooting, a Global News camera operator spotted the officer watching the Flyers – Senators game steps away from where two people had recently been shot.
Exclusive video filmed by Global News shows the game being broadcast inside a PSRT (public safety response team) vehicle marked “supervisor.”
The shooting occurred near Thorncliffe Park Drive and Overlea Boulevard in East York. Officers were called shortly after 8:15 p.m. Saturday for reports of shots fired.
Two people were transported to hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
No one has been arrested in connection with the shooting and a suspect description has not yet been released.
When reached for comment regarding the officer watching hockey, Toronto police spokesperson Meaghan Gray said the incident is now being reviewed.
“Generally speaking, our members are expected to use all equipment for police-related business,” Gray said in an email.
“For this particular incident, the images have been sent to the unit complaints coordinator at the officer’s unit for review.”
Between Jan. 1 and the end of Sunday, there were 471 shooting incidents in Toronto. Of those incidents, 12 were in 53 Division — the area that encompasses Thorncliffe Park.
Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association, said in a statement “recording police officers is nothing new” and that officers “realize when they’re on duty … at any moment someone can pull out their phone and they’re on video.” He added he couldn’t comment on what the officer was doing at the time the video was captured.
“I can say that our officers are highly trained, professional men and women, who work hard to keep Toronto one of the safest cities in North America,” McCormack said.
The PSRT unit is described on the Toronto police website as a “dedicated, full-time, highly trained team with quick response capacity and a mandate to respond to specialized situations including extreme events, the protection of critical infrastructure and public spaces, searches for missing vulnerable persons and large-scale demonstrations.”
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