Police say a woman who jumped on two police cars in the middle of a busy North York intersection on New Year’s Day is not facing any criminal charges.
Toronto police say their officers responded to a call shortly before 2:30 p.m. on Jan.1 about a woman “acting erratically.”
In a video of the incident provided by police, a woman can be seen pacing in the intersection of Finch Avenue West and Milady Road as a cruiser pulls up to a pedestrian walkway.
Const. Christofer Lemieux and Const. David Donaldson, who responded to the call, said in a news release regarding the incident that the woman was “irate” and “screaming at surrounding vehicles” when they arrived at the scene.
As Lemieux called for back-up, the woman can be seen jumping onto the hood of their police cruiser where she proceeds to stomp on the windshield causing it to shatter.
The woman then jumps off the back of the cruiser and smashes its rear window. Traffic can be seen slowly crawling by past the scene.
A second cruiser is then seen arriving at the scene and the woman proceeds to jump on that vehicle, again smashing its front and rear windshield.
Eventually, the woman walks toward an ambulance at the scene and the officers are able to close in on her. The video shows the officers collaboratively placing her under arrest without incident.
The woman, who was not identified, was later transported to Etobicoke General Hospital for treatment.
“What you see are officers behaving with restraint and professionalism, deescalating the situation, not crowding her and they resolved the situation safely and without injury,” Toronto Police spokesperson Mark Pugash told CP24 Tuesday afternoon. “That’s what they’re trained to do and that’s what they did to maximum effect in the video.”
Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders praised the officers involved in a news release issued Tuesday, calling the handling of the situation a “fantastic job.”
“Their response to mental health, I think that is one of the most underestimated things that we do,” Saunders said.
“The men and women have done a fantastic job. And those are the stories that are unfortunately not heard by the public but I can tell you they are recognized by the Command, they’re recognized by me, they’re recognized by unit commanders. So, the fact that we are able to de-escalate at such a high level is a true statement of our professionalism.”
According to the same news release, Toronto Police officers responded to over 23,400 calls throughout 2016 to help people who are emotional disturbed. They said as a result of those calls, more than 9,000 people were apprehended under the provisions of the Mental Health Act.
Pugash said incidents where Toronto Police were called to defuse such situations increased last year by 11 per cent.
“It’s really an escalating problem and what really seems to be a lack of urgency from people who really must be in a position to provide better care and attention to people who are in mental health crisis,” he said.
“The job of the police officer, what they’re trained to do is to deescalate and to resolve the situation without any injury and that’s what they did. I think you can see on the video, they retreated, they did not crowd her and they were able to resolve the situation. She (the woman) was clearly under great pressure, she blew out a window of a car and was damaging the vehicles but they resolved the situation safely and with no injuries.”