Saturday, September 04, 2010
"Something like this happens, it's a black eye on community. It's a black eye on police as well," Abdifatah Warsame, a youth worker in the city's Somali community, told CBC News.
Warsame was resonding to a raid that happened on Monday. It happened after someone called 911 using Faysal Abdiwali's cellphone saying that shots had been fired.
Police traced the phone to Abdiwali 's apartment building at 320 Dixon Rd. near Kipling Avenue, in an area known as Little Mogadishu.
Three officers showed up just before Abdiwali and his family were to eat their dinner after ending the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Minutes later, another dozen officers showed up and barged into the apartment, Abdiwali said. "One of the other officers came, grabbed my throat, threw me against my own table and my wall," he said.
Phone left on the grass
Abdiwali, 25, said that neither he nor his friends or family made the call on Monday — that he had left his phone on the grass in a park while he was playing football.
On Friday, Somali community members said they were shocked and disappointed that several of its young men — who they said had never been in trouble with the law — had been caught up in the police action.
"We certainly want our young men to view police as protectors and doing their job protecting the community, rather than viewing the police as those that create havoc on them," Warsame said.
Ron Tavener, superintendent of 23 Division whose officers executed the raid, told CBC News on Friday that police take every emergency call seriously, especially when gunshots are reported.
"We can't ignore when crimes are taking place or reported," Tavener said.
"We're trying to recruit young people in the Somali community to become police officers. We're trying to do all these things and sometimes sitautions like this they dont help," Tavener said.