TORONTO

To their credit, they took the first step — now all these two police officers had to do was take one more.

With the cameras rolling at Toronto Police headquarters, Consts. Matthew Saris and Sasa Sljivo should have turned to Francie Munoz Tuesday and apologized in person for mocking the young woman with Down Syndrome in widely-condemned remarks caught on their dash cam video. They should have addressed her face to face and simply expressed what they have already written in a letter: that they’re truly sorry for their inexcusable comments.

Instead, they didn’t even have the courage to look her way.

And when their brief appearance before a police disciplinary tribunal was done, they walked right by Munoz, her family and all her supporters who had crowded into the hearing room and then exited quickly through the underground parking garage.

“I looked at them,” Francie, 29, later told reporters. “They did not look at me.”

For shame. If they’d just apologized to her publicly, as the Munoz family had requested in return for dropping their complaint, they wouldn’t be giving life to a moment of time that won’t soon go away for either officer.

On Nov. 5, 2016, Pamela Munoz was driving with Francie when she was ticketed for turning left on a red. During the stop, the officers were recorded on their dashboard camera laughingly describing Francie, who was sitting in the backseat of her mom’s jeep, as “a little disfigured” and “half” a person.

As part of the Crown’s disclosure in her case, Pamela Munoz was given the tape of the officers’ dash cam six months later. She couldn’t believe the comments made about her daughter. “My blood was boiling. I was so angry and upset.”

Her daughter was equally shaken. “I feel hurt by what they said about me. It’s not right; it’s not cool,” Francie said.

Under the police act, Sljivo faces two charges of misconduct: the first for allegedly using “profane, abusive or insulting language” to describe Francie “in direct contravention of the Ontario Human Rights Code, Toronto Police Service Policy and Procedures and Toronto Police Service Standards of Conduct.”

The second charge of misconduct is for allegedly bringing “discredit to the reputation of the Toronto Police Service” after his remarks were made public.

Saris is charged with one count of misconduct for being “complicit” in the offensive conversation by not reporting his partner’s remarks to a supervisor.

During their brief appearance, the charges weren’t read out and both reserved entering a plea to a later time.

Francie thought the officers might say something to her at the hearing. “I hoped so, I hoped so. But nothing.”

In their July 14 letter to her and her parents, the pair apologized for their “inexcusable remarks” that were “inappropriate, disrespectful and unprofessional” and said they were “truly sorry and hope that you will accept our apology.”

It certainly sounds sincere — but her family dismissed it as too formulaic. Saris and Sljivo offered to meet privately with Francie earlier this summer to apologize in person, but her parents wanted it recorded. The police association rejected their demand as “public shaming.”

And now a stalemate.

“We want a public apology for all the people they were laughing at and mocking and considering different,” insisted Pamela Munoz, surrounded by many of her daughter’s friends. “It’s not just about Francie. It’s a bigger picture ... we’re not going to let it go.”

Gary Clewley, the lawyer for Saris and Sljivo, accused the family of “grandstanding.”

“They said they’re sorry. What more do they want? Apparently more,” he said in an interview. “I don’t get it. They should just get on with life. And let these guys get on with their careers.”

But after hearing how her daughter was ridiculed, Pamela Munoz doesn’t believe these are the kind of officers who belong with Toronto Police. “In my work, if I made a comment like that, I’d be out the same day.”

Firing them is clearly over the top. But expecting them to make a public apology — is that really asking so much?

The hearing continues Sept. 19.

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