This is the first post in a new category, “Person of Interest”. Mike McCormack caught my attention with these words: McCormack also said that once Cavanagh is cleared, those responsible for his being charged and prosecuted for murder “will be held accountable.” Asked to elaborate, he added: “The association will use every legal means to hold these people accountable.” This text appears in a Toronto Star article available here. This could be interpreted as a threat. In the same article these words appear: Falconer was asked his reaction when told that the officer was given special privileges — allowed to enter and leave court through a garage behind the judge’s entrance, with a small police motorcade.
I begin to think that a different set of rules apply, and that Mike McCormack thinks this should indeed be the case, when a police officer is charged with a serious crime.
In another news story, Mike McCormack seems to think he can endorse political candidates, when the police services board said in December 2008 that the police cannot.
When Mike McCormack became police union president, the star had this to say:
The controversial son of a former police chief, who successfully fought accusations of being a crooked cop and was recently convicted of insubordination, now heads the force’s union.
Mike McCormack was fined for insubordination. In this article the following quote appears:
McCormack was charged for running the name of former Star reporter John Duncanson, an award-winning journalist who specialized in covering police corruption, through three law enforcement databases in January 2008.
as does this quote:
Some of the stories Duncanson wrote involved McCormack’s brother, William Jr., who, along with one-time union head Rick McIntosh, had been indicted on corruption charges for allegedly soliciting and accepting bribes from nightclub owners in Toronto’s Entertainment District. Those charges were stayed when Justice Bonnie Croll ruled the two men’s right to a fair trial had been breached by the Crown’s excessive delays in bringing the matter forward.
The CBC News did a story on some of the above. I leave you to read it if you are interested. A large number of cases were thrown out. It’s a disturbing article.
What’s my point here? Perhaps that the police union head should consider not being so voluble on a case that has yet to be tried, and in which it appears that the police officer now charged was indeed given a special ride in and out of the courthouse. It already has the faint taint of special treatment. Let’s keep this one as above board as humanly possible. Let’s not make it look like threats of bad outcomes are being hinted at.