"Toronto's Finest" #1

Twice coming home after an afternoon shift at work, I was stopped by the Police, and to say the least it wasn't a pleasant Mimico and once from Bathurst St.

In late 1953 Eddie D. and I were coming home from work at midnight in his `1951 Chev. , it was a beautiful car fully equipped with automatic drive, and we had pulled up to a red light at Roncesvalles Ave, {named after a village in Spain} going to head east bound on Queen St. when a Police car came careening down Queen St west bound went through the red light, did a screeching U turn coming to a rest right beside Eddie's car.

I wondered what the hell are these guys doing and what do they want, and start to get out of the car, and when the passenger cop sees me getting out of the car he pulls his gun on me, which scares the shit out of me, I stand still, and he comes over and puts me up against the car.

The other cop is out of the car by now, and asking Eddie for his ownership, which Eddie provides, and the second cop with me is starting to search me, in a rather rough manner he jams his hand into one of my windbreaker pockets and then the other, and when he jams his hand into the second he lets out a little scream, because it was full of tacks, I was using to label cars that night, which we would do, using a railroad spike.

Like I say he lets out a little scream pulls his hand quickly out of my pocket with tacks sticking out of the ends of his fingers, after a few minutes when they came to the conclusion we weren't the Boyd Gang, they let us go, and we continued on home.

I could never figure out why they did this as I don't know how they could have even seen at this time of night who was in the car from where they came so fast, unless they were just playing some sort of game.

The second time I was stopped, I was walking home at midnight from an afternoon shift at
Bathurst St. and to get the streetcar you had to walk up an unlit ramp from the past the east unused entrance to Fort York, yard on to the bridge, then up Bathurst St. to Front St. where the car stop was.

I was just about to cross Bathurst St. when a cop car pulls up and asks me what the hell I'm doing, at which I say, I'm going to catch the Bathurst car to Queen, and they put me in their car.

They proceeded to ask me what I was doing there, and tell me that there had been break ins, at the concession stand at Fort York, and were checking out the area.

They had searched me and found me carrying a pocket knife, which most young fellows, Boy Scouts would do, and I tell them I need it for work, which I didn't.

I tell them that I had just come from the afternoon shift at Bathurst St. and that seeing as I was not in a big hurray, they should just drive down to the Yard Office and ask about 5 guys down there if I had just come from there or not.

For some reason or another they didn't want to do this either, they just wanted to carry on a verbal jousting match, and at some point they tired of this, made a U turn on top of the bridge and took me to the car stop at King St, by the Wheat Sheaf, all you ex railroaders remember the Wheat Sheaf fondly, I guess.

I get the King car west bound and proceed home, to Tyndall Ave in Parkdale.

I get to work the next day, and relate my experience around, and was talking to Danny M. remember Danny M., {world champion wrestler} and he tells me that he was driving his girl friends car one day when he was stopped by a couple cops, because the tail light wasn't working, they ask for the ownership which he couldn't provide because it wasn't his car.

They make him park the car and take him to a near bye station and proceed to question him, in a rather antagonistic fashion, and so antagonistic that Danny is getting a little hot under the collar, and tells them to phone his girl friend, and ask her if he had permission to have the car, and bring down the ownership, they continue to antagonize Danny and he desperately wants to kick the shit out of these two guys, and Danny says to me could have handled any four of them, but the Police Station must have had twenty five, these nit wits didn't know how much fire they were playing with.

Danny's girl friend comes down with the ownership and off they go.

I have had several run ins with the Police, that in retrospect are humorous, but at the time were infuriating, another I had was right in the Police Station at Cowan Ave. in Parkdale which I will touch on later, at some point, and also one at a Willowdale sub. station as well.

Allan