No answers at location of alleged crack video
Man there claims he saw footage of Toronto mayor
Fresh bullet holes scar the dingy hallway outside apartment 1703 at 320 Dixon Road — the unit where, sources say, drug dealers may have stashed an explosive video that allegedly shows Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking a crack pipe.
The man who answers the door, in a red T-shirt and with his black dreadlocks pulled back into a loose ponytail, stares out with suspicion. Asked about the video, his eyes darken, but the reaction is fleeting. He invites a National Post reporter and photographer into his modest unit. He swipes crumbs off the square, scuffed wooden dining table with a sponge and apologizes for the mess in the sparsely furnished unit.
“So what did you want to know?”
Asked again whether the alleged video was ever stored in this apartment unit, the man — who speaks on condition of anonymity, saying he does not want to be publicly drawn into the politically charged saga — pulls out a cellphone and begins dialing. Behind him, afternoon sunlight pours in through a gap in the sagging white window curtain.
He thrusts the phone toward a Post reporter.
“Here,” he says. “Talk to him.”
The man on the other end of the phone sounds relaxed, friendly. He says his name is Jon, and he is a friend of this tenant. He believes the video may have been stashed inside unit 1703 at some point by a group of young Somali men who “have keys.”
“Characters have been around there,” Jon says. “If (the video) is hidden in the house, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
The cellphone abruptly cuts out; the battery is dead.
Unit 1703 has come under intense scrutiny in recent days. An unverified report in the Toronto Star Thursday says anonymous sources alleged Mayor Ford pointed to this unit as one of two possible locations where the alleged video was being stored — although the mayor has said, on record, that the video does not exist.
Also, earlier this week, a member of the mayor’s staff told the Post that Ford aide David Price passed a tip to former chief of staff Mark Towhey, who passed it on to police, about drug dealing in unit 1703. But another source contradicted that account, telling the Post that the mayor’s office tipped off police about the address at 320 Dixon Rd. after receiving information that the alleged video was stashed there.
Back inside unit 1703, the man who answered the door on Wednesday afternoon speaks guardedly. He says he moved in several months ago, noting the unit was previously occupied by a local drug dealer. Asked why a number of young Somali men have keys, as his friend indicated, he responds with surprising nonchalance: “I think somebody may have duplicated my key,” he says casually. “That’s why I’m changing my locks.”
In quick succession, the man issues a number of claims: that, while he does not know its current whereabouts, he has viewed the alleged video and believes it to be authentic; that he has seen other more innocuous footage of Mayor Ford “hanging out” in the neighbourhood; that Somali gang members who support the mayor are angry at the video’s sellers; and that he and his friends briefly considered making a fraudulent crack video starring an acquaintance and Rob Ford look-alike nicknamed “Slurpy,” in an attempt to discredit the real thing. Slurpy, who was not available to be interviewed by the Post, apparently opted out of the phoney video plan, ultimately deciding he did not want to become embroiled in the simmering controversy.
“We don’t like Rob Ford getting screwed,” the man in unit 1703 says. “We wanted to help him … 85 per cent of (young Somalis) are very upset about these guys with the video.”
It is difficult, in this surreal saga, to know what to believe and what to dismiss.
The man in unit 1703 — who says he is Jamaican, appears to be in his early 40s and admits to having served jail time for drug offences — claims he viewed footage of Mayor Ford smoking a substance that may have been crack cocaine before New York gossip site Gawker broke the story two weeks ago. The National Post has not seen the video and cannot verify its authenticity.
The man offers few details of what he saw in the alleged video, but says it is just one of a number of clips of Mayor Ford he has viewed. In another, he says the mayor appears to be in the back of a limousine with his arms outstretched, possibly smoking a cigarette. He says he will try to arrange for the Post to view some of these clips, which are not in his possession. He has produced none so far, and is not answering his phone.
Reached Thursday by telephone, his friend Jon says the man “packed a bag” and left unit 1703, at least temporarily, amid the intense public focus on that address. While he maintains his friend has no direct involvement in the production or safekeeping of the alleged crack video, Jon says: “It’s becoming his problem.”
While the man in unit 1703 said police never interviewed him about the alleged video, investigators came to his home for another reason, about a week ago.
On May 21, just a few days after the video scandal hit newsstands, a man was shot on the 17th floor of 320 Dixon Rd. The same detectives who were reportedly tipped off by Mayor Ford’s staff about other illegal activities on the building’s 17th floor were dispatched to investigate, but police sources have since stated there is no link between the alleged video and the May 21 shooting. Residents of the building say a fight started on the 18th floor and rolled downstairs, where shots were fired. Bullet holes, circled and numbered by police as evidence, remain visible in the walls.
Soon after the shooting, the man in unit 1703 said he heard from his panicked mother: “Somebody had called my mom and told my mom I got shot,” he recalled. But he was fine; he was not even home at the time.
As to what ultimately became of the alleged crack video, the man seems certain of one thing. “That tape,” he said, “will never surface.”