Rob Ford says he was singled out when issued jaywalking ticket in B.C.
Posted February 5, 2014 3:48 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Rob Ford said Wednesday that police in a Vancouver suburb singled him out last week when they gave him a ticket for jaywalking, something the Toronto mayor said he’s done “many times.”
Ford, who was in B.C. to attend the funeral of a friend’s mother, said he found it “funny” that even though he was crossing the street with 15 other people, police only ticketed him and a friend.
“She (the officer) picked me out and said ‘You’re Rob Ford! Come with me!’…and we both got a jaywalking ticket for $109.”
The RCMP, which is responsible for policing Coquitlam, refused to comment on the incident, saying they do not routinely disclose or publicly comment on matters that do not involve criminal code or other serious offences.
Ford said he supports the police and understands they have a job to do, but added he was “perplexed by it.”
“I’ve jaywalked, maybe I’ve broken the law a lot of times,” Ford said with a chuckle. “Everybody jaywalks!”
He then told reporters he’s jaywalked since when he was a little boy.
“When I was like five years old …you run across the street … when there’s an ice cream store across the street and I’m a little tyke, I scoot across the street,” he said.
Ford noted that very few police officers give jaywalking tickets in Toronto, but said he would not “ridicule” police in B.C. if issuing jaywalking tickets “is what they do.”
But the ticket would seem to be the least of Ford’s ongoing troubles.
Earlier last week an ex-boyfriend of Ford’s sister filed a lawsuit claiming the mayor conspired to have him attacked in jail to prevent his illicit behaviours from becoming publicly known.
Scott MacIntyre alleges in his statement of claim that Ford arranged for jail staff to facilitate the beating.
None of MacIntyre’s allegations have been proven in court, and Ford’s lawyer, Dennis Morris, has said “they’re without fact or foundation.”
The mayor has admitted to consuming too much alcohol on occasion, as well as smoking crack cocaine, likely in a “drunken stupor,” and to smoking marijuana.
