Our community police at 13 division are so awesome! I spoke to Sergeant Todd Jocko last night regarding our neighbourhood menace and I have a lot of hope we can take back that corner. I sent in a log of incidents we've seen from our house, I'll put them here and update.
We can expect an officer to be taking pictures of the graffiti on the Hakim Optical building, as well they will be speaking with the store manager about how the police can help them. I've sent in a statement as well with pictures & video.
My husband called the police at 7:45 PM because he was yelling & freaking out. His voice was louder than then the TV with the doors closed (10 stores up). Police did not show up and he was on the corner until 11:15 PM.
A man was standing on the corner, video-taping him because he was being loud as usual. It made him uncomfortable & it actually made him pack up & leave. I ran downstairs to try and meet him but he was scared off by the time I got down. While I was out, I ran to RX Optical to ask if he’s had any issues with “the preacher”. And when I came back, I was waiting for the light to change and taped him freaking out. First time we did.
That morning, I went into Shoppers while my husband stayed back at the corner to video tape the graffiti on the Hakim Optical that we watched him do from our balcony on May 27th. He also planned to video tape “the preacher” if he started up again. When I came out, “the preacher” was gone because of the video-taping. It was a nice day, so we stood on the corner to see if he left for good. I noticed he walked up to Bathurst, and was peaking around the corner at us to see if we left. About 10 minutes later, he came back & approached us in a very aggressive manner. When he was about 15 feet away from my husband, I told him that he was coming back and to turn the camera on. He walked right up to us, within about 2 feet and asked us why we were video-taping. We ignored him; I pulled out my phone to check my email. He would not move and my husband warned him to please back up and give him his space. After a long pause, he did and walked away. We put our phones down and proceeded to stand on the corner. A few others did as well, whatever their reason was. We thought he was gone. We left and went back to our building. The minute we almost walked through the door, he was already back.
2:00 PM, I was in the living-room with the balcony doors open. Suddenly, he started REALLY raising his voice. I looked outside and he has his hands high in the air yelling “the devil! “the devil!” “THE DEVIL!!” Thinking his getting completely out of control, I called the division, at that time they told me they had received another call as well about harassing someone. When they arrived at 2:51 PM, there was an elderly man with a walker, speaking to the officer (wasn’t sure if he called or had Shoppers called). The officers basically just talked to him for a few minutes, and told him to move on. This was at 2:55 that they left.
He came back at 9:45 pm; my husband was sick so he just closed the door and put the fan on. I was coming home at around 10:30, walking down St. Clair W towards my building, and I see some guy chasing him down the street by Shoppers. He ran inside, they chased him out and I couldn’t see where he went after. He did not come back.
“The preacher” arrived at the corner at 7:49 PM. My husband ran downstairs to video tape him & he ran away. He came back at 9:00 PM. At 11:21 PM the police were called.
My husband and I were coming back from lunch; we stood on the corner to disrupt him and to see if he’s being offensive. I proceeded to take pictures of the graffiti that was still there (to send to Joe M’s office); he approached me and told me that Hakim Optical already knows about it, and that he was going to clean it up. I did not interact with him at all. He left and a few minutes later, so did we. When we were on our balcony, we saw him attempting to clean the graffiti with Windex. It will not come off.
About 4:00 PM, two guys walked past and one of them turned around in anger. He goaded him and got extremely animated, punching his chest as if to want to pick a fight with him. His friend tried to get him to leave, but he was mad. He reached down, grabbed a bunch of change from “the preacher’s” change box, and ran down the street. “The preacher” tried to run for a bit but gave up.
