One shocking video of Mayor Rob Ford was made public on Thursday. On Friday, lawyers will ask a judge to release another: the video that appears to show Ford smoking crack.

Ford’s precarious hold on his office weakened again Thursday when he was forced to apologize for a profane and violent caught-on-camera tirade as legal teams prepared to fight for information and footage that would worsen his ongoing calamity and councillors launched an effort to force him out of power.

Lawyers for Muhammad Khattak, one of three alleged gang members who posed in a photo with Ford outside what police documents call a crack house, will appear in court on Friday to argue for access to the video whose existence Ford denied in May. Media lawyers will file submissions with the same judge, Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer, asking him to make public the material censored from the nearly 500-page police document he ordered released in part last week.

Khattak was arrested in the Project Traveller raids in June. His lawyers will argue that when police seize evidence with a search warrant, any “interested party” can make an application to view or receive copies. They say that access to the video, which is associated with the photo, is important to his defence.

In a press conference last Thursday Police Chief Bill Blair revealed the video had been recovered from the deleted hard drive belonging to a person arrested in the Project Traveller raids.

If Khattak’s lawyers succeed in obtaining the video, it is possible it would not be made public.

Nordheimer is expected to issue a ruling soon on the still-redacted portions of the document, which the Star believes to contain more bombshell revelations. Eleven censored pages are described as information in the possession of the lead detective on the day after the video scandal erupted. There are also nearly 40 pages of blacked-out conversations between police and former Ford officials such as former chief of staff Mark Towhey and former communications chief George Christopoulos.

The sections of the document released last Thursday — the same day Blair confirmed that the video is real — showed that Ford took part in secret meetings and clandestine exchanges with an accused drug dealer, Alexander “Sandro” Lisi, with whom he was in contact multiple times on many days.

Ford emerged from his office early Thursday afternoon to apologize for his “extremely, extremely inebriated” behaviour in a new video published by the Star minutes earlier, in which he talked about fighting and killing someone. He refused to answer specific questions about the video or anything else, and he again took a back stairwell to get to his car — which was driven by another man, four days after he promised to begin using a driver.

Council redoubled its efforts to pressure a proudly obstinate mayor to take a leave of absence. Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, one of Ford’s staunch conservative allies for most of the term, announced an unprecedented council motion to ask the provincial government to remove Ford from office entirely if he continued to refuse to take a leave.

“Extraordinary measures are needed in extraordinary times,” Minnan-Wong said.

Minnan-Wong had introduced a weaker motion on Wednesday that would have simply asked Ford to take a leave and censured him for his behaviour.

“Council needs to deal with this; the mayor isn’t dealing with it to the satisfaction of the public, and I think there is increasing intolerance from members of council, from friend and foe alike on council,” Minnan-Wong said Thursday.

The motion, which is likely to be debated by council at its meeting next Wednesday and Thursday, drew the immediate endorsement of several councillors. But Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly said he is “emphatically” opposed.

“We’re the sixth largest government in Canada and we’re going to go running to the province like a juvenile and ask them for help because we, as adults, can’t address this issue,” Kelly said.

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, a friend of the Ford family, choked back tears when asked about the mayor. Premier Kathleen Wynne called the situation a “human tragedy,” and she said, “I hope he is listening to the people who care about him and love him and taking their advice.”

The advice of his mother Diane and sister Kathy, however, is to stay the course. Taking a calculated step into the media spotlight, the two women gave an extraordinary CP24 interview at Diane Ford’s Etobicoke home, where the mayor held his popular Ford Fest parties in happier times.

Diane Ford said her son should “smarten up” but carry on with his work rather than enter a rehabilitation program. She said his first priority should be tackling his “huge weight problem.”

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Councillors and political aides exchanged astonished glances upon seeing the video in which Ford calls himself a “sick motherf---er” and talks of committing “first-degree murder.” Councillor Shelley Carroll, a Ford opponent, said the footage of the visibly intoxicated mayor “really makes your stomach do flip-flops.”

“We’ve seen him change colour; we’ve seen him jump up in the council chamber and go in the back, and heard yelling; we’ve heard glimpses of that. That behaviour is some sort of legend — and I’d never actually seen it.”

“Clearly, it is disturbing. It’s embarrassing. It’s frightening. Conduct unbecoming of a chief magistrate,” said Councillor James Pasternak, a centrist. “It’s gutter language and very sad.”

Ford hunkered in his office as his mother and sister spoke. Just after their interview finished, he appeared to be returning constituent calls from last month: he phoned a Star reporter at 5:40 p.m., not knowing that she was a member of the media. When told he had reached the Star, he said, “OK, thank you, bye” and hung up.

A day after losing policy advisor Brooks Barnett, Ford’s office suffered no new resignations — and even managed to hire someone. Kathleen Wright, the daughter of prominent Ipsos pollster John Wright, had her first day on the job as a junior assistant.

Wright, a 23-year-old who has said she aspires to a career in journalism, was interviewed by Ford on Tuesday — at some point in between his stunning admission of crack cocaine use at about 12:15 p.m. and his internationally televised speech about four hours later, two sources said.

Wynne’s government may decide against wading into the Ford imbroglio even if Minnan-Wong’s petition motion is approved by a sizable majority next week. The removal of the city’s elected mayor would require custom-made legislation: there is nothing in the City of Toronto Act that allows for the province to intervene in the city’s affairs in the event of a scandal.

“The province has a responsibility to work with the City of Toronto and evaluate any proposals they bring forward,” said Municipal Affairs Minister Linda Jeffrey, adding that the minority Liberal government has no plans to amend the Ontario Municipal Act.

Councillor Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother and usually a loquacious defender, did not come to city hall. The mayor, who vowed Sunday to meet reporters “anywhere,” spoke to the media only to give a statement on the video.

“It’s extremely embarrassing,” he said. “The whole world’s going to see it. You know what, I don’t have a problem with that, but it’s extremely embarrassing.” He did not answer when he was asked why he won’t “go away.”

Kelly, offering a tepid defence of the mayor he has called to take a leave, mentioned to reporters the up-tilted angle of the video, which he said suggests the mayor was unaware of the presence of the camera, and had “been set up.”

“Who’s setting him up and why?” Kelly asked.

With files from Betsy Powell, Paul Moloney, Rachel Mendleson, Jennifer Pagliaro, Laura Kane, Richard J. Brennan, Jayme Poisson and Kevin Donovan

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