

Chris Fox, CP24.com





Police Chief Bill Blair has broken his silence on a video in which an inebriated Mayor Rob Ford speaks in a Jamaican patois and appears to call him a “c*** sucker.”

The video was filmed at the Steak Queen restaurant in Etobicoke about five weeks ago and it shows Ford complaining about Blair and ridiculing the surveillance measures taken by police as part of their investigation into his activities.

Ford has previously admitted to drinking a “little bit” on the night the video was shot and has called it a setback, but he has not commented on the apparent jab at the city’s chief of police.

Blair spoke to CP24 Wednesday afternoon, saying he was “deeply offended,” and disgusted by the remark.

“My response to that was that I don’t respond to personal attacks but don’t confuse that with me being OK with it,” Blair told CP24’s Stephanie Smyth in his first public comments on the video Wednesday afternoon. “It was disgusting, it really was. My kids saw that, my daughter heard that, people who I have worked with and protected for 37 years all heard that and frankly I think it is shameful to have my name even associated with such behaviour.”

Ford and his councillor brother have previously said that they stand behind police and do not let their feelings about Blair affect their support for front-line officers, but in his interview with CP24 Blair points out that Mayor Ford was in fact insulting his officers in the Steak Queen video.

“He was referring to me but he also said the word ‘them’ and he was speaking about my officers. He was speaking about the officers who conducted surveillance, the officers who got search warrants and who examined evidence.” he said. “It was not only a totally unacceptable and obscene attack on me, but on my people and I find that offensive.”

Ford was asked about Blair’s comments as he left a meeting with other big city mayors in Ottawa, but declined comment.

Blair stands by comment being investigated by review board

The Office of the Independent Police Review Director is currently looking into a complaint against Blair made by Ford’s brother Doug.

The complaint concerns Blair’s comment about being “disappointed” during an Oct. 31 news conference in which he revealed that police were in possession of an infamous video believed to show the mayor smoking crack cocaine.

Speaking with CP24 Wednesday, Blair said the comment has been largely misinterpreted and said he is “100 per cent confident” he acted appropriately.

“I had just disclosed information that I knew was going to be a cause of great concern and would be damaging to the reputation of the city and that was the nature of my disappointment and I said that during the press conference,” he said. “Now the nature of my disappointment or who I may or may not have been disappointed in has been construed or interpreted in a different way but I was very careful in that press conference to explain exactly what I was disappointed about and it was because I was concerned about how the information I had just imparted would affect my city.”

Blair said the complaint came as no surprise to him because Ford-friend Alexander “Sandro” Lisi had suggested it was coming when he was taken into custody by police in October.

Lisi is currently charged with extortion in connection with his alleged attempts to obtain the Ford video.

“When we arrested Mr. Lisi he indicated to us that this was going to happen, so we weren’t surprised and if you look back on Nov. 1, my media affairs man Mark Pugash was saying quite publicly that we anticipated this kind of attack on police and the investigation,” Blair told CP24.

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