A Toronto police scandal that reads like a Canadian spinoff of The Departed has put all law enforcement under the microscope.
What happened: Ontario’s police watchdog is investigating all 45 of the province’s police services following the arrests of seven Toronto police officers, who are facing a flurry of corruption charges.
Since the initial arrests were made last week, at least five more officers have been suspended across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) as part of the investigation.
Catch-up: The Toronto police officers are accused of participating in drug trafficking, robberies, taking bribes, leaking confidential information to organized crime groups, and even plotting the murder of an Ontario corrections officer.
Some officers allegedly shared sensitive data with gang members, who then used the intel for extortion schemes and shootings across the province.
Why it matters: It is one of the largest police corruption scandals in Canadian history, and unfortunately, it’s not an isolated incident. A number of the nation’s law enforcement agencies have an unfortunate track record of similar cases, especially when it comes to sharing information with organized crime groups.
An internal RCMP investigation between 1995 and 2005 uncovered over 200 officers who had been involved in incidents of corruption. Nearly a fifth of those corruption cases involved sharing confidential police data with criminals.
Bottom line: The severity and scope of the allegations could seriously undermine public trust in law enforcement. Some say the scandal could even compromise current criminal trials, particularly those involving the accused officers.—LA