Toronto police Chief Bill Blair says carding is legal — but that “if done improperly, it can cross the threshold into illegality.”

The police services board has retained Frank Addario, a prominent criminal lawyer, to offer an opinion on the legality of the force’s controversial practice of stopping, questioning and documenting residents on the street. The people who are carded are disproportionately black and brown, and some legal experts contend that the practice violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Blair argues that carding is a valuable crime-fighting tool. In a year-end interview in his office on Friday, he said, as he has in the past, that he has privately obtained three legal opinions from “very senior counsel” that “do not suggest that it’s illegal.”

But he added this time that he believes carding can become illegal under certain circumstances.

Asked when it crosses the “threshold,” he said: “I think there is a point at which, if a person is detained without justification, then it can be illegal. And so the manner in which the approach is made, the questions are asked, the information is obtained, even the type of information that’s gathered, there’s a point at which everything the police do must be justified in law.”

Civil rights lawyer Peter Rosenthal, who seeks the abolition of carding, said he is not aware of Blair saying anything similar in the past.

“If he acknowledges the danger, that’s another reason to desist from the practice,” Rosenthal said.

“I don’t understand why the police are trying to find out how much they can get away with legally,” he said. “By this overpolicing of the black community, they’ve caused tremendous antagonism, and it ends up with them getting much less co-operation from the community than they would otherwise get.”

Blair addressed several other topics.

Mayor Rob Ford

Blair said officers might have had a chance to “intercept something” while watching Mayor Rob Ford — but that jumping to action could have jeopardized their investigations.

City councillors called earlier this month for Blair to explain in detail why Ford had not been arrested. Police surveillance captured Ford conducting clandestine package exchanges with an accused drug dealer, and alleged gang members were caught on Project Traveller wiretaps suggesting that Ford was smoking crack cocaine at a crack house as late as April.

Blair said investigators have to maintain a “broader focus” on “the whole truth, and all of the evidence.”

There “may have been an opportunity where they might have been able to intercept something,” he said, but they needed to “look at the investigation in its totality.” Project Traveller, which targeted the Dixon City Bloods gang, was concerned with murder, gun trafficking and drug trafficking, he noted.

“When you do larger, complex investigations, like when we do wiretap investigations — over the course of Project Traveller, for example — you see a lot of other, low level, criminal activity that takes place. And if you just stop and deal only with the first infraction you see, that can end the larger investigation,” Blair said.

“I understand the public may want a different outcome, but we’re not there to create the outcome somebody may want,” he said. “We’re out there to gather all of the evidence, and, where appropriate, to put that evidence before the courts.”

The investigation into Ford’s activities adds significant uncertainty to the 2014 mayoral election campaign, which formally begins on Wednesday. Blair said the looming campaign does not make the investigation any more urgent.

“Those investigations have to be done, as I have said before, without fear and without favour. Certainly without any political consideration. We follow the evidence. We go where the evidence takes us. And if there is evidence that warrants the laying of a charge, and a prosecution, then that will take place. And if not, that decision will be based entirely on the evidence,” he said.

Blair would not commit to informing the public when the Ford investigation is complete. And he would not say whether he is confident residents will still get to see the video that appears to show Ford using crack if there is a guilty plea from Sandro Lisi, who is charged with extortion for allegedly using threats to try to obtain the video. The courts, Blair said, will make the call.

Tasers

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Blair said he will return to the board early in 2014 to discuss the “very measured, careful expansion” of Taser use.

The board voted in November against immediately approving Blair’s request to spend more than $300,000 to acquire 184 Tasers for front-line officers.

The force already had more than 500 Tasers, but provincial restrictions limited them to use by supervisors and the tactical squad. Though the province announced in August that it would ease the restrictions, Alok Mukherjee, chair of the police services board, said he wanted to wait until the ministry of community safety issued its new set of guidelines.

“The board decided to wait until the ministry published its regulations. The ministry has now published its regulations. So, as quickly possible, I’ll go back before the board to give them an opportunity now to see the regulations, and my recommendation,” Blair said.

Blair’s proposal was met with public resistance from civil libertarians and advocates for the mentally ill, who argue that Tasers are frequently used improperly. The provincial announcement came a month after the killing of Sammy Yatim, an 18-year-old who was armed with a small knife on an empty streetcar when he was shot repeatedly with bullets and then hit with a Taser.

Blair pointed immediately to the Yatim incident when asked about the year’s greatest challenges.

“We had a number of events, and in particular the Yatim shooting this summer — the use of force, and in particular deadly force, involving persons who are suffering from emotional disturbance and mental illness, remains a huge challenge for the profession of policing, and for the community at large,” he said.

G20 bandanas

Police Const. Vincent Wong last week became the first officer to be found guilty of a Police Services Act charge related to the G20 summit in 2010. He was charged with unlawfully arresting a man who was wearing a bandana around his neck.

Officers who testified at the tribunal wrote in their notebooks during the G20 that they were told anyone wearing a bandana was “arrestable.” On Friday, Blair said it is not true that there was an order to arrest bandana wearers.

“I’m not aware of any order that was given to arrest people who were wearing bandanas. I believe there were instructions given to investigate persons, but not to arrest. There’s a difference, by the way, a very significant difference, between investigating someone who might be wearing a mask and arresting someone,” he said.

He argued that it was reasonable to instruct officers to investigate people wearing bandanas.

“We’d experienced a significant amount of rioting in the city, and there was a great deal of intelligence information that rioting was going to continue. And I think we have a responsibility to do everything we can to prevent those acts of violence and vandalism. And so persons who, for whatever reason, were determined to be worthy of further inquiry, I think it is appropriate — police have to make those inquiries,” he said.

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