TORONTO -- The city has launched an investigation after two Black women alleged that they were racially profiled by a bylaw enforcement officer during a recent visit to Centennial Park.

Friends Debra Ampon and Eva Amo-Mensah say that they went through an open gate to work out at the running track at the Etobicoke park on Tuesday morning not thinking anything of it.

Upon finishing their workout the women say that they noticed the gate had been locked, forcing them to hop over the fence.

That is when they say that they were approached by a bylaw enforcement officer.

Video of the incident, which was uploaded to Instagram on Tuesday, shows the women repeatedly asking the officer why he chose to ask them for identification and take a picture of their licence plate when he hadn’t made a similar request of other park users.

In the video, the officer is heard explaining that the women had accessed an area with a sign that said “not by use without permit” but the women point out that he did not stop two teenagers, who happen to be white.

They also allege that the officer told them “if this was my home I would be licensed to shoot you guys.” That remark was not captured on video.

“Before we hopped over two white teenagers actually hopped over first and he was standing right there,” Ampon told CTV News Toronto on Wednesday. “We actually watched him not ask them a single thing but the moment we were about to hop over he goes to us and says did you know that you are trespassing. We definitely feel like we were singled out and that this is a form of racism.”

In a statement released on Tuesday night, City Spokesperson Brad Ross said that upon learning of the allegations the city “immediately initiated an investigation, which is being led by the Municipal Licensing & Standards division with help from People & Equity, and the Confronting Anti-Black Racism Unit.”

Ross confirmed on Wednesday afternoon that the City will be bringing in a neutral third-party investigator to look into the incident.

Mayor John Tory also weighed in on the incident while speaking with CP24 on Wednesday morning.

“Obviously we have to get to the bottom of this,” he said “The clip sort of helps you understand that it was clearly a confrontation that was unfortunate and unacceptable in some respects.”

Tory did not comment on the specifics of the incident but speaking more generally, he said that there is just no room in the city “for threatening behaviour, for racist behaviour and for racist attitudes.”

He said that it is an unfortunate reality that Black people in the city of Toronto are “subject to behaviour and to attitudes that other people aren’t subject to.”

As a result, he said that they are sometimes anxious “doing perfectly ordinary things that the rest of us would never even think about,” like going for a walk in the park or heading out for a drive.

That, he said, needs to change.

“I don’t know what happened in this particular case but I will say that as a general rule that kind of thing, if there was that sort of encounter that was based on profiling people because of their race, is the kind of thing that we are going to have to deal with because in some respects it is systemic,” he said.

CP24 has requested to speak with the bylaw officer through officials with the City of Toronto but they have said that he won’t be commenting because an investigation is underway.