Cop defends Instagram photos
Officer says he has the right to capture moments in career
There was a photo from the morgue, one shot showing him grinning while holding a battering ram to break down a door — “Search warrant!” he wrote as the caption — and no shortage of gun photos, including one marked “G20 Training.”
In Toronto police Const. Garvin Khan’s most recent post on the photo sharing site Instagram, he appears to be holding part of a bomb. “TODAY I LEARNED ABOUT BOMBS” he wrote beneath the photo, next to a cartoon emoticon of a bomb.
Khan, a 15-year veteran of the Toronto Police Service, posted dozens of photos depicting his training, deployments and shifts on his personal Instagram profile that, until Thursday afternoon, was viewable to anyone online.
Although the officer says he has no intention of glorifying violence and defends his right to capture images of his policing career, Khan’s online activity was referred by the police service to its Professional Standards Unit, after a concern about the photos was brought to the Star.
Meaghan Gray, a Toronto police spokeswoman who provides social media training to officers, said Thursday that allegations of inappropriate online activity by Toronto police on both professional and private accounts are taken “very seriously.
“Any case involving photos where a person is portrayed as an officer or is in the course of their policing duties must be a professional representation of the Toronto Police Service,” Gray wrote in an email.
“Any situation where they are not would be considered by Professional Standards and, if warranted, an investigation would start where (Police Service Act) charges are an option.”
Khan told the Star Thursday he was disheartened to hear that his photos, which he calls “tongue in cheek,” could be considered inappropriate.
“At what point am I not allowed to capture moments in my life? . . . By no means do I think I promote violence. I would never want to glorify violence. Never.”
Asked about photos where he appears to be investigating a crime or even arresting a man bent over the back of a cruiser, Khan said the images show training scenarios. He repeatedly denied the arrest photo shows an actual detention.
“In nothing that I do would I compromise any victim, any investigation,” he said.
Khan said his photos, posted over the past few years, need to be viewed collectively to be understood. The gun photos, for instance, appear amid other more playful or innocuous photos from the job, vacation shots and even a picture with former Toronto mayor Rob Ford.
In that context, Khan said, his photos show he is an enthusiastic officer who recognizes the “cool factor” of some parts of police training.
“I really find it hard to believe, if you look at me in any of these pictures, you’re going to say this officer is confrontational and not approachable,” he said.
Khan conceded some of his photos may be viewed as typically “masculine.”
Underneath one photo of him holding a rifle in front of a graffiti-covered wall, Khan wrote: “In the safety of your bathroom mirror, you can flex, tell the girls that you’re in beast mode & to come at you. But you wouldn’t say that to a man. Because boy, that man will come at you. Bro.”
Beneath a shot of his handgun, he wrote: “For fifteen years this has been by my side. I have taken it to the darkest regions & it has brought me back alive. It has witnessed the evils of man & stood strong beside the good as they prevailed. Always faithful. IN GLOCK WE TRUST.”
Khan has not taken the increasingly popular two-day social media training course offered by the Toronto police, a course where officers are repeatedly told about the value of using discretion when posting online, said Gray.
Members of Toronto police who want work-related social media accounts for community engagement and public education/awareness purposes must get permission from their unit commanders and corporate communications department to take the social media course.
All police officers, regardless of whether they have taken the course, are entitled to personal social media activity in their private lives. But the Toronto Police Service social media procedure states that the online activity cannot “jeopardize the integrity and reputation of the service, or the reputation or safety of other persons.”
Christopher Schneider, a Wilfrid Laurier University associate professor who researches policing and social media, said the photos of Khan with a gun are jarring, given that the central role of law enforcement is to uphold the law and keep the peace.
“The depictions of violence contradict what it is we’re told is the mandate of the police. Now, that’s what makes the police the police, is the ability to use the authorized use of force. But to flagrantly display that contradicts the peace officer part of their role.”