

Chris Herhalt, CP24.com





Now that additional police have been deployed overnight throughout the city, a Kevlar-clad Giorgio Mammoliti told CP24 police must be allowed in schools and carding restrictions should be eliminated to further combat gun violence.

The Ward 7 councillor said he was embarking on a ride-along in Jane and Finch on Friday night in part to support police efforts and in part to support provincial community safety and corrections minister Michael Tibollo, who found himself embroiled in controversy after responding to a question about carding in the legislature with a story about his own ride-along in the neighbourhood.

“At least Minister Tibollo has come up here and tried to figure out what the problem might be and wants to resolve the issues,” Mammoliti said.

In response to a question from NDP MPP Kevin Yarde about whether the PCs would loosen Liberal-era restrictions on carding, Tibollo replied that he had recently “put on a bulletproof vest and spent 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock in the morning visiting sites that had previously had bullet-ridden people killed in the middle of the night.”

He later said the residents of the Jane and Finch area are “surrounded by drug deals” and that he stepped on and broke crack pipes on the ground while walking.

“He didn’t say anything that was racist,” Mammoliti said of Tibollo’s comments. “You know what they’re doing, he’s vulnerable because he just started the job. And those veteran politicians at Queen’s Park, all they’re doing is trying to pounce on a minister who is trying to do his job.”

Before embarking on Friday’s ride along, Mammoliti issued a press release daring “social warrior activists and professional grant getters that feed off the misery of these neighbourhoods” to call him a racist for wearing a bulletproof vest on a police ride-along, something he says is mandatory and Tibollo said was offered to him as a courtesy.

“I’ve being doing these rides for 28 years – if you’re riding with the police, they require you to wear this vest on these night patrols as a safety feature,” Mammoliti told CP24.

Also speaking on Friday, Mayor John Tory says he has never been asked to wear a vest on a Toronto police ridealong.

He said Tibollo should end restrictions on the practice of carding, restricted by the Liberals last year, and Toronto police resource officers should be allowed back in public schools.

“I do believe in carding, I believe in bringing the police back into our schools in this area. It’s no secret, when we took away their resources that all of these difficulties happened,” Mammoliti said of this year’s spike in gun violence.

An additional 200 police officers began patrolling across Toronto on Friday night, part of an eight-week long boost aimed at deterring gun crime. The city is also investing millions more in social programs and investing in new technology to better solve gun homicides.

But Mammoliti said new steps must be taken.

“You can’t keep hugging the thugs, it doesn’t work. We’ve been trying this for years. I have been delivering cheques to social agencies up here for 28 years, and they’re still killing each other,” he said.

He did appear to take issue with stereotypes of the Jane and Finch neighbourhood as crime ridden, something the NDP accused Tibollo of in his statement about his ridealong experience.

“Most of the Jane and Finch corridor is safe, but there are some pockets that we do need to pay attention to and that’s what I’m doing tonight.”