Local man filmed altercation
Hasan Ahmed was visiting Toronto and witnessed confrontation
A Saskatoon man whose video of an angry confrontation between a blond-haired man and a Muslim family in Toronto says he recorded it in case things escalated and he had to turn the tape over to police.
Hasan Ahmed’s video clip has been viewed thousands of times on Facebook and Twitter since he posted it on Monday.
He and his family are on vacation and went to the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal to buy tickets to visit the Toronto Islands. He was waiting with his wife and children for a friend to join them when he saw the blond man trailing behind the group of people.
He said the man got close to the group and they started talking, but soon Ahmed heard shouting.
Ahmed got closer and started recording.
He said his children were scared. After the man shoved one of the members of the family, Ahmed spoke up.
He saw the terminal’s security staff take the family inside and later saw them on the island, where one member thanked him for speaking up, he said.
“In the beginning, I was shocked. I was sad the whole evening, and my kids were asking me why they (were) doing this to the Muslim people,” Ahmed said. “I did not really have any language to explain this to them.”
Ahmed’s video starts after the confrontation began. A man in a burgundy Hawaiian shirt can be heard asking one man from the group where he is from. The man replies that he was born here and calls the other man an “idiot.”
The man in the Hawaiian shirt shoves the man with dark hair; another man intervenes, shoves him and tells him to leave before he “does something” to him. A woman then steps in. The confrontation continues.
A longer video posted by another Facebook user also starts after the confrontation began. One of the members of the group can be heard telling the blond man he smells of alcohol.
“You don’t tell me what to do in my province,” the man replied.
“Your province?” the darkhaired man asked.
From there, the confrontation gets more heated and threats are audible.
Neither recording shows what preceded the confrontation.
Ahmed moved to Canada from Bangladesh eight years ago, and his children were born in Canada. They had not experienced anything like this before and since moving to Canada, neither had he, he said.
“I was a little bit shocked, but still it was in my mind that we live in a great country, a lot of multicultural people live in this country and a lot of good people around,” he said.
Toronto Police said an assault report was filed and an investigation is ongoing.