Person calls out Toronto cops for ‘doing nothing’ but not everyone agrees

A man who filmed himself confronting a group of Toronto police officers for seemingly hanging around and “doing nothing” is getting a ton of reaction from the internet this week, though perhaps not all of it in the tone that he expected.

The individual, whose video was shared widely on Sunday, decided to ask members of the force that were gathered in a local park about what they were up to, specifically in light of the budget increase that their union requested from the government last year.

He then filmed a couple of seconds of the awkward interaction that ensued.

“I got this piece of mail: Toronto Police Services asking for more money,” the civilian said, holding out a Toronto Police Association flyer that many residents of the city took issue with when it landed in their mailboxes in December.

“Why [are] one, two, three, four, five, six, seven of you just sitting here doing nothing?” he goes on to ask, counting off the cops who admittedly look to be simply chatting leisurely around their bikes.

The uniformed public servants remain silent, with only one of them replying, asking calmly “Nothing better to do with your time?” The filmer then says, “is that your response?” before the short clip, which now has more than 110,000 views via one X repost alone, ends.

While some people noted that the person had a “valid question” — especially as our tax dollars pay police salaries, so it is citizens’ “business to look into” their efficiency — other’s commented on what they perceived to be the poster’s “lack of courtesy” and more.

“Why do people feel like they can go and be assholes to cops for no reason? Do people walk up to every public service employee and hassle them about how they are spending their time?” one person asked.

Others wondered what else officers on patrol are supposed to be doing between active incidents, and compared the cops’ conduct to “office cooler talk” standard of other work settings. “Do you not know how patrolling officers work? They are on patrol. That’s it,” one person remarked.

Still others expressed their disdain for YouTubers and TikTokers looking for their 15 minutes of fame, seeking out “exactly what they can do or say” in short posts for maximum views.

In this case, some seem to feel that there are more productive ways to address concerns about how much money is allocated to policing in the city and how that money is spent.

A few commented on the fact that the video “cuts off before we can really find anything out” about what the officers depicted were doing or speaking about, and whether it was at all work-related.

Of course, it’s hard not to be critical when some first responders grace Toronto’s notorious sunshine list, with one Toronto Police sergeant listed as earning a staggering $378,254 per annum, making them the third-highest-paid City employee.

This would be why there was more than one negative comment about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the officers “just standing there” represented of public funds.