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Extra, Extra: Muggings, Unions, and Trucks

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Every weekday’s end, Extra, Extra collects just about everything you ought to care about or ought not miss.

Mayor Rob Ford at this year's Beach Easter Parade. Photo by {a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/58609798@N00/7058809291/"}BruceK{/a}, from the {a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/torontoist/"}Torontoist Flickr Pool{/a}.

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Comments

  • Jasocohen

    Wow, Crazy Rob Ford is crazy. Hope he resigns.

    • Eric S. Smith

      If he did, he wouldn’t have to put up with the hassle of being mayor any more; it’s win-win, really.

  • Eric S. Smith

    I don’t see a fat joke in the linked Star article, but here’s the weak, lazy joke they’re going with for Friday’s editorial cartoon.

  • Anonymous

    When I read about Ford’s encounter with the Star reporter I was also wondering why Ford wasn’t being charged with mugging the reporter. Well I wasn’t actually wondering why, I’m not so naive to think that our laws apply equally to all citizens. This is just another example of how there’s one set of laws for the police, one for the wealthy, one for Rob Ford and one for the rest of us which actually gets enforced unlike all the others. Using the threat of violence to gain possession of someone else’s property is a mugging, there’s no two ways about it. Ford knew who the person was and that he was a reporter, yet he still used the threat of violence to gain possession of the reporter’s property.

    If anyone thinks that what Ford did wasn’t a mugging I encourage you to try the same thing yourself. If you see someone you recognize looking at or taking photos of your fence or the area around your home but who are on public property you should chase after them and threaten them with violence unless they give you their belongings and get out off the public property near your home. When the cops arrive tell them you had to mug the person in order to protect your family, when they’re done laughing they’ll arrest you for mugging the person, unless of course you’re Rob Ford, then the police investigate the victim of your mugging instead.

    Just another example of how our justice system is really a just-us system, though I do have more respect for judges who seem more inclined to treat everyone equally under the law unlike Toronto cops.

    • Anonymous

      One Law for Them, another one for us.

    • http://twitter.com/gilmourtaylor Geoff Gilmour-Taylor

      “When the cops arrive tell them you had to mug the person in order to protect your family,”

      That’s not what Rob Ford did, though. He claims that Dale handed the phone over of his own free will. Since Dale wasn’t able to get his voice recorder working, there’s little in the way of hard evidence of what happened (I’m sure that the security footage won’t show much of anything).

      Unfortunately, Ford has a tendency to lie and lie and lie until confronted with hard evidence, at which point he’ll grudgingly retract exactly enough to account for it. I seriously doubt either side has enough proof of their case, and this won’t get any farther than it has. Although there may be a case for tampering with the phone after he got it.

      • Anonymous

        Ford admitted (hell, he bragged) threatening the reporter, and claimed he could barely restrain himself from hitting him. He is also reported to have said the reporter dropped the cell phone out of fear.

        I expect after an inconclusive “investigation” by the cops, the matter will be quietly dropped by them, but Rob will continue to trumpet it at every opportunity as ‘evidence’ the “downtown elites” are out to get him.

        How this plays out as a “freedom of the press” issue remains to be seen, but I also expect Rob will back away from his vow to boycott any and all scrums where Dale may be present (though he will continue to refuse Dale’s, or any Star reporters’ questions).

        • http://twitter.com/gilmourtaylor Geoff Gilmour-Taylor

          And I’m sure in Ford’s mind that means he showed admirable restraint, and that he’s just so impressive a guy that crooks run away. He’s basically Batman.

          Also, I think your predictions are dead on.

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