City
Rob Ford threatens Toronto Star reporter outside home
You've probably heard the news already — that the police were once again called to the mayor's house last evening, this time after an altercation of some kind with Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale who was working on a story that brought him in close proximity to the Ford home in Etobicoke. Depending on whose account of the evening's events you believe, altercation might not even be the correct word. What sounds most likely is that Ford completely lost control and threatened a reporter who was merely doing his job.
Dale's account of the events is both precise and chilling, and given that another witness has corroborated the claim that he never set foot on the mayor's property, I'm not sure how anyone with basic intellectual abilities could think that Ford's response was justified. Here's how Dale describes the encounter:
"At some point, perhaps 10 or 15 seconds into the encounter, he cocked his fist near his head and began charging at me at a full run. I began pleading with him, as loud as I could, with my hands up, for him to stop. I yelled, at the top of my lungs, something like, "Mayor Ford, I'm writing about the land! I'm just looking at the land! You're trying to buy the TRCA land!" Instinctually, I also reached into my pocket to grab my dead phone. I then fiddled with my voice recorder, trying fruitlessly to turn it on so that I would have a recording of any physical violence."
Ford's take on the event goes like this: "I ran around and I caught him. He just went nuts; he dropped his cellphone; he dropped his tape recorder. I said, 'What are you doing here?' He started screaming, 'Help! Help! ...Help! Help! Help!' I think he thought he was going to die but I didn¹t touch him... I'm not going to tolerate people taking pictures of my kids and my family in my backyard" (via the Toronto Sun).
Is that some tough guy pride I detect? Tough to tell, but that last sentence is problematic on a number of accounts — not the least of which because Dale wasn't in his backyard. In an interview with CP24 following the incident the mayor alternated between claiming that the reporter was in his backyard and standing on cinder blocks looking over the fence.
When news of the incident started to spread at around 10:00 p.m. (NewsTalk1010 interestingly had some coverage just before 9:30 p.m.), Twitter erupted with reaction despite the relatively late hour. If somebody puts together a word cloud that sums up all the tweets, we're bound to see "shitshow" and "crazy" in some pretty big fonts. I've rounded up some of the reaction below. Pay close attention to tweets from the Sun media folks (Sue-Ann Levy, Ezra Levant, and Joe Warmington), whose grip on reality has finally deserted them altogether.
More to come tomorrow
Original photo by BruceK in the blogTO Flickr pool
Discussion
186 Comments
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Fact: Rob Ford just has to suck it up if there was no actual trespassing.
Were you there Derek? NO.
To Anon: Sue-Ann Levy covered David Miller...she never set foot in his home or near it from a wodded area at evening.
Any reporter with INTEGRITY would give a call to the Mayor.
Most main stream media that cover City Hall have George Christopoulos' cell phone number (Mayor's media person). Some even have Mayor's Cell Phone. Daniel should of called the Mayor and tell him he wants to look around. It is called integrity.
Lines like this make me think that BlogTO should stick to restaurant reviews.
Reporter= giant a-hole
Next.
"I'm not sure how anyone with basic intellectual abilities could think that Ford's response was justified."
Well, judging from these comments, it looks like BlogTO's right.
- Ladies and gentleman, his excellence Rob Ford on AM640 moments ago.
Sure, the Mayor's act making an arms length request to TRCA to buy a piece of land is newsworthy, but is it necessary to spin the story into questioning whether or not the mayor needs a new fence or whether or not they need the extra land? That's their own personal business! - I'm sure there are more newsworthy urban affairs issues to be covered in the city than whether or not the mayor wants to build a new fence around his house. Cover the transaction, but what the mayor does afterwards with the land that's lawworthy isn't news - that's personal.
I don't understand why, in an era of Google Maps and TOMaps marking property boundaries, Daniel felt it was actually necessary to go see where an unnewsworthy fence doesn't exist currently. Surely he should have known he was going into dangerous territory - of course, perhaps he had other objectives.
The strip of land between sidewalks and the road is public property too - if someone was standing there peering into your home, that's still creepy, is it not?
Where's the "allegedly" part in your headline, Derek?
I'm no fan of the mayor, but good God, where is the attempt at some kind of objectivity here? I wasn't there and you weren't there, Derek.
Here are some choice quotations attributed to Ford (one of which appears above) regarding the situation:
"I had him cornered...he was like a cornered rat and he didn't know which way to go."
"I don't need security to take care of the Toronto Star."
"Nobody, but nobody is going to come here and try to intimidate my family."
Right now I see an ad for a Ford F150 pickup. No more Ford pickups for you!
That said, he does sound like a bit of a wuss. And you'd have to be nuts to go anywhere near Ford without a GoPro strapped to your head -- both to record your own actions and His Worship's inevitable uncorking.
A simple "hey, who are you and what are you doing?" would have sufficed. Even Ford's version indicates a short temper that went off and came perilously close to assault.
I'm sorry but you people making excuses for the reporter need to give your left winged head a shake. Your bias has gone beyond logic. Rob Ford deserves the rath of the left, but only when he leaves his home. The man's home is off limits, especially after dark.
Secondly, he ran away because Ford was charging at him. I'd suggest re-reading the story, because he even talks about cornering him.
If Dale actually did breach the property line and looked over the fence, that's going too far, and he and the Star should apologize. Until visual evidence is presented, that remains an "if" - I'm not inclined to take the mayor or his brother at their word given their prior public fabrications and uncorroborated claims.
I suspect this won't happen for the same reason that Rob never released the 911 tapes after Mary Walsh's "assault" on him...because he's a lying sack of bloated testicles.
1) It happened in pitch dark, on Rob Ford's property!
2) Somebody looks over my fence, I'm gonna kill that sonofa
3) The reporter should have known that the Mayor of Canada's largest city has the anger management of a berzerker.
Wow, talk about the pot calling the kettle black! If Mayor Miller reacted the same way (if you can imagine that) to a Toronto Sun reporter - on public property, well before sunset - I doubt any of the right-wing commenters here would be defending Miller. The hypocrisy is truly mind-boggling!
Lines like this make me think that BlogTO should stick to restaurant reviews."
I agree.
I do not approve of most of what Rob Ford does or says or stands for, however, this article is so blatantly biased. The story speaks for itself. Rob Ford's actions, daily, speak for themselves. This is an embarrassing discussion and an embarrassing article.
This mayor is a joke. He should be charged every time he calls 911 when in fact there is NO EMERGENCY. He knows who Dale is. I wish we could get rid of this guy. It is so embarrassing to have him as an elected official. Ridiculous.
http://gorfed.net/misc/robford_threat.jpg
The property isn't particularly large, parkland wraps around two sides of the property, and the existing fence doesn't seem very tall - 2 metres, maybe a bit more. The proposed new property line abuts an existing park building. It looks like Dale would have had no more than 10 metres' distance from the back fence at any point he was back there. In fact, Ford's line about "cornering" Dale suddenly makes sense, now that I see the spot where the neighbouring property extends beyond the back of the Fords', creating a spot where Ford could actually trap him if the neighbours also have a fence. Given the lack of space back there, and the potential for cornering, I could easily see Dale panicking if Ford did approach as aggressively as claimed.
At the moment, I have the following thoughts in my head:
1) The story doesn't look like much of anything, Ford's claim to require better security aside; if that were the main concern, increasing the height of the existing fence and doing something about that very penetrable chain-link fence at the front may do more than buying that chunk of land. The east side is still completely exposed parkland, albeit more easily visible from the road. Maybe he just wants a bigger backyard and didn't think that would fly with TRCA; whatever, that's their problem to hammer out.
2) Ford overreacted. Given the relatively small area, he could easily have approached and asked what was going on. I know he and the Star are at war, but this is ridiculous. Show some maturity, FFS.
3) I'm guessing Dale got a tip to the proposed purchase, based the initial story on some phone interviews and a map of the area, and after initial publication decided to take a look at the actual plot of land in question. He could have called and asked Ford or his staff about it, except Ford has very publicly refused to deal with Star staff, so one obvious way this could have been avoided was highly unlikely to take place at all.
4) The story seems mostly dumb, the press have a right to investigate the activities of public officials, and as long as Dale wasn't explicitly sticking himself or cameras across the property line, or otherwise trying to capture images beyond the scope of the story he was investigating, Ford has no defence for his actions. As I posted earlier, if Dale was breaching the line or trying to capture images unrelated to the story about the proposed property expansion, he and the Star need to apologize.
5) Ford and the Star really need to declare an armistice. Short-fused, grudge-holding buffoonery and gotcha journalism are not helping anyone.
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He was a "fair distance away" and yet he ran, not walked, he RAN to his car? LOL!
Did this happen with Mel Lastman or David MIller? I'm guessing probably not.
Maybe I'm the only one, but it feels like the Toronto Star tries to provoke Ford into something and then makes it an incredibly huge deal. People are aware that there goal is only to sell ad space by selling newspapers/page views right?
I'm not sure what I'd do if someone stood behind or beside my house on public ground watching my home, but I know I definitely wouldn't like it, and most likely not tolerate it.
Instead he kept insisting (to an extent where I stopped believing him), that he didn't hit the reporter. Yet he seemed to admit to taking his phone.
How many mayors get stalked outside their own private residences as much as Ford has? Argue what you want about his temper but the Star and CBC really don't need to be anywhere near Ford's neighborhood, yet there they are...trying to provoke him to doing something that will garner ratings. Public official or not, you don't need to do this.
I saw the quotes that you used and I still don't see a specific threat. Did he threaten violence? Did he threaten to sue him? What did he threaten him with?
If this headline and article were any more biased and slanted, it would fall over.
There is no reason for this "reporter" to be snooping around near the mayors house, especially at night. I wish Ford had of knocked him out.
So yes, public officials need to be held to a higher standard if they want to have power over their citizens.
As for all these outraged claims of bias, I wasn't going for a neutral account here. Have you ever read this site before? Our editorial convention is to inject our opinion into things. That's what we do. You're free to disagree with what's put forward — or to skip it all together — but it's probably a good idea to check your readerly expectations before getting all hot and bothered.
Now...even if he was obeying the law...does it still make it right? Laws and ethics are sometimes completely in opposition and just because you are allowed to do something doesn't mean you ought to.
People in the media lack empathy. You never think for a second how you would react if you were in someone else's shoes. Let's just camp outside your property but as long as we're on public property I guess it's ok to spy on you and your family and take pictures of you in your private time.
Douchbag got exactly what was coming to him...I would have done worse to him.
And as far as I know, whether it's tasteful or not, there is no law against taking pictures of anything while on public land. My neighbours can see into my house and yard... should I have them charged if they look??!!
I'd love to hear how the people who feel this is stalking define the word. Wikipedia has:
"…unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person. Stalking behaviors are related to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person and/or monitoring them."
From the mayors own account of the incident, intimidation was never a factor - or at least he's to "manly" to admit it. I can possibly see harassment being brought into play, but only if you remove the context of the situation - i.e. the fact that the journalist who is known to the mayor was investigating conflicting claims about the state of the land in question. That said, stalking is still inappropriate by definition as it has to do with "unwanted or obsessive attention". Daniel Dale was not popping up on his lawn - or anywhere outside of city business as far as has been reported - on a regular basis. Unwanted falls out the window when you're an intentionally controversial political figure having been publicly elected and applying to annex public property. You must see how that makes the original story of interest to the city residents.
Even Ford is only arguing - and contradictorily I might add - that he was "in his yard" or "peering into his yard" and attempting to take pictures of his "wife and kids". And with that, we're only left with possibly bad judgement on the reporters side (time of day/proximity) and the mayors (charging with cocked fist). And if those are the facts, the mayor is the only one looking at possible charges unless he can prove Dale was IN his backyard, TAKING pictures of his family (and I wonder to what end that would be anyway?) as he would have had to have done in the past.
It's also a little sad that so many people in this city can't remain open about facts and instead align with a "party", ideology or newspaper.
And I'm sure Ford could have been more civil but the Star reporter didn't also need to be where he was and he also didn't have to report on the incident as if someone inflicted some sort of injustice on him. He got yelled at and chased away...which is what any reasonable homeowner and family man would have done. If Ford brought out a shot gun and let out a few shells, I might be concerned but thats not what happened. And its hard to be civil when Ford has received death threats, had other members of the media confronting him on his driveway and even photographing him getting food...do I blame him for his approach? No. In his position, I'm probably a bit testy too...and so would most of you.
OTOH... the Star appears to have pulled their original graphic of the proposed property purchase, and Ford is saying the piece he wants is beside, not behind, the house. The Star needs to post whatever Dale was sent by TRCA. Ford's security story still doesn't pass the smell test (dude, if you want a bigger yard, just say so), and it's actually weakened by saying the land purchase is beside the house, which is highly visible from the road and other houses, than behind the house, which is between properties and a park building.
What a stupid shitshow.
Remember how many stories there were about what a violation it was, and comments about how Miller should have assaulted the photographer, and how the police were called in?
Oh, wait. No, you don't remember any of that, because NONE OF IT HAPPENED.
Tacky!
That's like a band wearing their own merch.
TEAM FORD RULES!!!
http://www.thegridto.com/city/politics/send-in-the-clowns/
Marijuana bust
DUI
It was dark and is daughter was with him when CBC showed up in his driveway
Verbally abusing people at a Leafs game
Dale was in his backyard and it was dark
The unions got Ford elected, the hate-fevered lefties in the media will get him re-elected.
Step off Franco.
Do you have any proof, any evidence, anything at all, that shows that Dale was standing on anything at all and looking over Ford's fence?
Marge (Warrior Princess) (AKA Mary Walsh), who has done skits with...oh, say, like several canadian Prime Ministes, Mr Buchard, Joe Clark, Ralph Klein, Don Cherry...
http://boingboing.net/2011/10/30/marg-warrior-princesss-greatest-hits.html
is a threat to Rob Ford HOW?
----
Now, it might be 7 PM that the star's reporter is out wandering, rather than being in the office, to take some photos of a piece of land that apparently it is hard to ID from the map as to which chunk outside of Mr Ford's house he wishes to purchase...and he is now a threat to Mr Ford?
Even if he was standing out back, on a pile of cinder blocks, with a 2400mm tele lens, that would be considered "acceptable" by some newspapers, like say, anything owned by Rupert Murdock. The law is clear on that- there is no expectation of privacy from a photo taken on public ground to within someone elses private ground. If Mr Ford wants privacy, then he should quit and find another vocation. He has taken on a role as a public figure, and that comes with some costs with it, namely that he cannot expect the same degree of annanimity as a non-public figure would have. He is a fool, and a great laughing stock for the rest of Canada to point at.
Certainly, in the same vein as going to KFC when he has professed to wanting to loose weight-how is that any different than the reporting of various public figures who have professed a great desire to loose weight and then are seen wolfing back a 12`cheesecake ? If you make your life into a spectical, then how else do you think people are going to treat you?
James
The reporter broke the law when he used the cinder blocks to gain a better view into the Mayor's property. Ask any private investigator and they will tell you the same thing. Now we have the reporter lying about the cinder blocks. How do we know this? Because the neighbour who works in his garden every day confirmed those blocks were not there before the reporter showed up.
This action by the Star is nothing shirt of disgusting.
Typical left. Cry your rights have been violated at the slightest police action yet give this guy a pass when it suits your agenda or political view. Two faced hypocrites.
Thought so. I'd bet you work for the Star or The Grid.
That's all you had to say. Your pissy little insult was just turd-icing on the shitcake that you've brought to the comments.
As everybody knows, throwing a winny ass tantrum is certainly the best way to deal with any matter.
People who are near your house but on public property don't have to justify being near your house and you generally don't have cause to threaten them with assault for being there.
'they will feel the sharp blow of an asp across their kneecaps'
You got a licence for that snake?
Seriously, are you willfully forgetting that he has absolutely lied in the past in similar circumstances?
I'm STILL waiting for evidence from YOU shithead since the onus is on YOU!!!! Nice dodge you pulled there.
Dale you wimpy a$$ed shit, if you were a real journalist you would have been able to stand your ground, especially if your story was true.
And obviously Rob Ford is a hot-head who acted stupidly when there was no real threat and when a reporter was on public land and not private property. There is also no evidence that pictures were taken of Ford's private property.