TORONTO

The TTC is apologizing for ditching riders to pick up Mayor Rob Ford’s high-school football team.

Meanwhile, Toronto Police say they made the right call when they asked for the bus ride.

Two TTC buses dropped off fare-paying riders to respond to the police request for a shelter bus for Ford’s team at Father Henry Carr school on Thursday. Eventually one bus took Ford’s team, the Don Bosco Eagles, back to its school.

“My deepest apologies go to the riders who were displaced,” TTC chair Karen Stintz said Monday. “It was a full bus (on the Finch route) and there is no question our riders were inconvenienced.”

While Stintz said “in hindsight” the busload of riders shouldn’t have been displaced to transport the football team, she said TTC transit control received the request for the shelter bus from Toronto Police with no reference to Ford, his football team or that the bus was needed at a football game.

Stintz said the TTC will continue to provide shelter buses upon request to the police.

“I don’t want transit control to ever be put in the position to evaluate whether a request (from police) is legitimate,” she said.

Police spokesman Mark Pugash said officers asked for the buses to ensure a volatile situation didn’t turn violent. However, he said police had nothing to do with the decision to dump TTC riders.

“Our officers were concerned the situation could escalate ... so they took prudent steps to prevent that from happening,” Pugash said.

Police routinely ask the TTC for buses to shelter large groups of people when buildings are evacuated. In this case, officers felt putting the team on a bus would “de-escalate” the situation on the field, he added.

“That was their goal and it worked,” Pugash said.

Councillor Michael Thompson, vice-chairman of the Toronto Police Services Board, said he expected a report about the incident at the board’s next meeting.

“Clearly from a police service board perspective we’re talking about it, ensuring that there is a protocol established so that one is aware as to when to make those types of calls,” Thompson said.

Thompson said riders “absolutely” shouldn’t have been taken off their buses.

“I can unequivocally tell you that it should not have happened and, in fact, I would want to understand why it happened,” Thompson said.