Sure. Private-sector involvement in police work. | #areyououtofyourfuckingminds

Via a helpful reader, one of the most disturbing things I've seen this week:

I don't know Joe Couto, and I'm sure he's a perfectly decent guy in real life, but this is on behalf of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police.

How many ways do you want this to be a bad idea? Policing priorities determined, not by public need or democratic process, but by shareholders' demands for profit? Policing decisions made in accordance with the desires of the folks holding the purse strings? Policing operations influenced by (horrors!) ... class biases?

If you filled a trial balloon with swamp gas instead of helium, this is what it would smell like.

Related posts:

• Police accountability in Toronto | #G20
• Fiscal demonization of @OccupyTO continues on CTV | #classwarfare
• SIU Concludes Reopened #G20 Nobody Investigation | #policebrutality
• The Sean Salvati #G20 video: Abu Ghraib comes to Toronto
• Toronto Police: Unaccountable, uncaring, unbelievable

What Alison said (and deBeauxOs, and Dr. Dawg ... )

And while we're on the subject, the inimitable and indispensible Alison over at Creekside sums up the whole police-brutality, civilian-oversight thing as only she can.

Go read it now.

Update: And after that, check out this story from Ottawa from deBeauxOs and the Dawgmeister. I mean, brutal shithead cops and their enablers in so-called oversight roles are bad enough, but in this case, the dumbass not only bit a 15-year-old kid on the shoulder – he broke his hand on the kid's head. This isn't scraping the bottom of the barrel – this is breaking through the bottom to root around in the mud and raccoon shit underneath. It's actually worth quoting the Dawg (emphasis mine):

Not a single component of the system is there to protect and defend the rights of individual citizens when they are casually violated by police officers.

Someone remind me: what does the Police Services Board do again?

So the cops are going to keep their sound cannons. The deal is done.

Mr. Mukherjee, tear down this wall

Just finished listening to Matt Galloway throwing softballs to Alok Mukherjee on Metro Morning.

Julian Fantino, in action

Let's review:

Currently, as the Conservative candidate in Vaughan, he refuses to attend an all candidates' meeting. He won't respond to questions about his role in the wiretapping of lawyer Peter Maloney and whether that extended to former police services board chair Susan Eng.