Chief Mark Saunders has responded to a backlash over comments he made in a newspaper interview that seemed to suggest that an alleged serial killer targeting the city’s gay community might have been caught sooner if some members of the community had spoken with police earlier.
In the interview published Tuesday, Top of Form
Saunders told the Globe and Mail that while police “knew something was up” with the disappearance of men from the city’s gay village, they “did not have the evidence” necessary to crack the case at the time.
The police chief said that he has “heard a lot of sources say certain things” since the arrest of Bruce McArthur but did not hear those things during Project Houston, a task force investigation into the disappearance of three men that was launched in 2012.
He said that “had those sources said those things when we had Project Houston,” things may have unfolded differently.
"We knew that people were missing and we knew we didn't have the right answers. But nobody was coming to us with anything,” Saunders told the newspaper.
The comments prompted a chorus of angry voices from the LGBT community, who have maintained that it was in fact police who failed to listen to them when they brought forward concerns about missing members of the community over the years.
Speaking with CP24 in a sit-down interview Tuesday night, Saunders said it was not his intent to “point fingers” at anyone.
“After the arrest I started to read in certain newspapers certain quotes that were said by sources and those things that were said – I had some concerns because I knew that if we had those quotes during the time that we were involved, I strongly suggested that there was an opportunity that maybe the outcomes could have been different,” Saunders said. “So as an agency, my concern is; is there something that we did wrong.”
He added that he’s trying to “deconstruct” the investigation to figure out how it could have been improved and how the relationship with the community could have worked better.
“In no way, shape or form was that me trying to point fingers,” Saunders said.
He also took issue with the headline on the Globe’s story and clarified that it was not a quote.
“The headline was ‘civilians failed’ and I’ve never said that and that would not be in my DNA to say that,” Saunders said. “So I guess that would be shocking and people would have started that as a starting point to reading the story and I can certainly understand. If that was how it was taken, then my apology for that because that was not my intention.”
On Tuesday night, the chief also released the full audio recording of his sit-down with the Globe’s editorial board and said he wants people to have the full context of his discussion around the investigation.
In a statement linking to the audio, Saunders defended the force’s 2012 investigation into missing men.
“As a police service, we put resources into Project Houston. A dozen full time investigators did thousands of hours of work canvassing the community, posting flyers, issuing news releases, interviewing witnesses, and still those activities did not yield any results,” Saunders said in the statement.
Saunders accused of victim-blaming
Saunders’ comments follows a day of heated criticism from some members of the Church-Wellesley community who have equated his remarks to the Globe and Mail with victim-blaming.
Members of the Church and Wellesley community have been raising concerns about men disappearing from the neighbourhood for a number of years but police had previously contended that there was no evidence to link the disappearances.
At a news conference held five weeks before McArthur’s arrest Saunders even went so far as to directly dispel rumours about a serial killer, telling reporters that officers had found no evidence pointing to that conclusion.
Police, however, later conceded that there was a serial killer operating in the village following McArthur’s arrest on Jan. 18.
“There have been several missed opportunities here,” Nicki Ward, who is a director with the Church-Wellesley Neighbourhood Association, told CP24 on Tuesday. “The police chief says he is willing to listen but I am not seeing much of it frankly.”
Ward equated the remarks made by Saunders with victim-blaming.
She said that she finds the remarks particularly objectionable given the community activism that eventually led to two police task forces into missing men.
“I don’t think anybody omitted. In fact the original Project Houston and later Project Prism was driven by the community. There was no omission on the community side,” she said.
Comments come ahead of meeting between police and LGBTQ leaders
The comments from Saunders came ahead of a 1 p.m. meeting between a number of LGBTQ community members, the Toronto Police Service’s LGBT Liaison Officer and police spokesperson Meghan Gray.
The meeting had been planned for several weeks was intended to kickstart discussions around how the police can better communicate with the LGBTQ community and vice versa.
In an interview with CP24 earlier in the day, one of the community members participating in the meeting called the chief’s comment’s a “cop-out” that will not help address any communication issues that may exist between the parties.
“The chiefs’ comments are no longer helpful to the city. It has come to a point where he is defending the force more than he is actually working with the community,” Bryn Hendricks said. “At this point it is not helpful to the community and it is not helpful to the force. He is doing a lot more damage than good and I think it is time for him to take a step back.”
Saunders working to “build up trust,” Tory says
Speaking with reporters at an unrelated event in Scarborough, Tory defended Saunders.
“My conversations with the chief about this matter have carried no sense whatsoever that he blames any victims,” Tory said. “None of us would want to blame the victims or their family or their friends or fellow community members.”
He said that Saunders is actively working to “build trust up” with the LGBTQ community in the wake of McArthur’s arrest and is not engaged in victim-blaming.
He said that police and civic leaders are all grieving “with the LGBTQ and Church and Wellesley community” and are working to improve “information sharing and communication.”
“The ultimate objective is one very simple objective which is to increase and restore any trust lost between the police and the LGBTQ community and we are going to keep working on that every single day,” Tory said.
In the Globe and Mail report, Saunders said that he is satisfied with the police response to the disappearances given the information that they had at the time.
Bruce McArthur is currently charged with six counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Andrew Kinsman, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi, Dean Lisowick and Skandaraj “Skanda” Navaratnam.
Police have said that they anticipate laying further charges in the case.
