Instead of a sports car, this Grand Theft Auto involved a Toronto Police cruiser.
If one didn’t know there is no filming in Toronto right now, they might think this cop car being chased by a cop car was a scene from a movie. But no, a Toronto Police squad car being chased by other squad cars in downtown Toronto on Saturday wasn’t for the screen.
It wasn’t fiction. It was happening.
Unlike the Trinity Bellwoods Park picnickers who some treated like criminals for merely going to their local park, this was real crime in action that had the potential to be deadly. It all started in 51 Division at Jarvis and Queen Sts. when a driver was trying to bait police into a car chase.
Sources say police didn’t bite. But in the process of trying to show off, the man lost control of his car and smashed into a storefront near the Fred Victor Mission.
A quick-thinking officer jumped out of his cruiser and went into the mayhem to see if anybody was hurt or trapped.
“The officer was trying to extract people,” said a witness.
But what no one realized was the driver of the car had gotten out of the wreckage undetected and quickly got into the officer’s squad car.
“He took off,” a witness said.
And was driving fast. A chase ensued. People on the scene say the driver took police along one-way streets.
“He tried to run down an officer,” one alleged.
But Toronto Police officers were able to “box him in” and get the squad car stopped in 14 Division.
The man fled but didn’t get far, being tackled by an officer on foot.
The suspect was taken to hospital with what were believed to be minor injuries. Luckily no one was badly hurt in this case, which could have been catastrophic.
Cosmin Radulet, 43, of Toronto, faces 13 charges, including dangerous driving and assaulting police.
This was another very difficult call for Toronto Police, who have been faced with homicides and shootings, mental health breakdowns and suicides during the pandemic.
For the city fathers to expect police to babysit parks and discourage people from having a picnic or seeing cherry blossoms is ludicrous.
The police are already understaffed because of COVID-19 infections and this incident once again shows the dangers they face.
Yet, we in the media didn’t cover the wild police chase and potential harm to average people with near as much attention as we did people congregating in a city park.
But we are getting it right now.
And it’s time the mayor and council are asked to not use their powers to pressure police officers to enforce social-distancing infractions at a time when there are real bad guys out there committing real crimes.
Crimes like this car chase downtown that was so strange people thought it wasn’t real. But it was no movie or video game.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
