Another bit player in the Rob Ford drama has left city hall abruptly.

Mike Toolaram, the imposing security guard who was criticized for his aggressive efforts to shield Ford from journalists, has been transferred to a different government building. City officials are keeping the reason secret.

“We really can’t speak about any personnel issues involving discipline taken against staff. But suffice to say he has been transferred to another site, and I don’t know for how long,” said city spokeswoman Jackie DeSouza.

Toolaram shoved and grabbed reporters, photographers and cameramen on several occasions as he attempted to protect the fast-moving mayor from people asking him questions. The journalists believed the physical contact was unjustified, and some had complained about Toolaram’s conduct.

“That’s something that’s between his manager and him,” DeSouza said. “That’s something I really can’t discuss.” She said security officials told her that employees are “regularly” moved to different sites for a variety of reasons.

The city reviewed its security procedures after an incident on March 19, when a group of journalists trailed Ford into city hall from a Queen St. hot dog truck to ask him about newly released police documents connected to his crack cocaine scandal.

Toolaram demanded that the journalists “stop the yelling.” He then dashed with Ford, at the mayor’s request, up a crowded staircase ; Ford shoved a Globe and Mail photographer on the way, then ran to his office.

DeSouza said the city “received quite a few complaints” about the incident. She said officials launched a “health and safety assessment” of the area outside the mayor’s office, decided to give guards “more training on crowd-control tactics,” and urged Ford’s office to provide advance notice of his movements.

Toolaram, friendly during calmer moments, was the closest thing Ford had to a bodyguard for much of the chaotic term. His peripheral role in the saga gave him a level of notoriety rare for a low-level man in uniform.

Jimmy Kimmel joked last April about Toolaram’s reaction to Ford’s face-first collision with a television camera. The Grid named him its Mensch of the Week last May; the Star profiled him last June. Last July, he placed second, to Ford, in the male category of the Sun’s Hotties of City Hall poll.

Toolaram, who could not be reached Monday, was present for some of the strangest moments of Ford’s term. Two days before the crack scandal broke last May, he walked side by side with Ford as the mayor conducted a solo car-magneting blitz in a desolate Etobicoke parking lot. Toolaram had an especially eventful week soon after the scandal re-erupted at the end of October. When the Iron Sheik showed up outside Ford’s office, shouting semi-intelligibly, Toolaram admonished the erratic ex-wrestler to lower his voice. When Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake showed up the next day, Toolaram confronted that ex-wrestler over his trademark giant scissors. And when a man in a banana suit inexplicably attempted to deliver dozens of bananas to Ford the day after that, Toolaram approached him to convey a stern message. “They don’t want your bananas,” he said.