Meet Kevin Ward. He’s a police officer from Toronto. He’s perhaps best known for being the mastermind behind a vast homophobic sting operation conducted last year.
The operation was called “Project Marie.” Undercover officers, under Ward’s direction, would go into public parks and pretend to be cruising for sex then arrest anyone who approached them. A total of 72 people were taken into custody and 89 charges were filed over a six-week period in 2016.
“I want anyone engaging in these illegitimate activities to know that this is no longer a safe place for this to happen,” Ward said at the time. “We are going to be at the park every day and we will not be tolerating it.”
Related: Toronto Police Charge 65 Men In Major Public Sex Crackdown
How about we take this to the next level?
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Well, Karma keeps receipts. She recently returned for Ward. And she brought her sister Irony along with her.
Metro News reports that Ward was just slapped with three charges of professional misconduct involving himself and several female college students, ages 18 to 26, who claim the officer did and said pervy things to them… in public, of all places!
The women were all members of the rover crew at Humber College, a leadership program for young adults interested in becoming police officers. Ward was one of the group commissioners. The alleged incidents happened between September 2016 and January 2017.
According to one young woman in the group, who is identified in the report by her initials, C.H., Ward “made inappropriate comments, gestures, or suggestions” to her on multiple different occasions.
Another young woman, identified as I.G., says he made an “inappropriate comment” to her while they were in a canoe together.
Related: It’s OK, Mom. You Don’t Need To Understand Public Cruising.
The report also alleges Ward showed several of the young women illegally recorded “cellphone videos, including footage of ‘vehicle investigations’ and ‘arrests of unknown persons.'”
In a statement, a spokesperson from the college says the school is “very concerned about any possible harm that may have been done and will follow this situation closely,” adding that Ward will “no longer be involved in the program.”
The statement continues, “We take any allegations of inappropriate behavior towards our students seriously, and the safety and well-being of all on campus and the integrity of our programs are of the utmost importance to us.”
Ward recently appeared before a disciplinary tribunal, where he entered no plea. The Toronto Police Department said they do not comment on ongoing cases, but to quote Ward himself:
The community wants anyone engaging in these illegitimate activities to know that this is no longer a safe place for this to happen. We are scrutinizing what you do every day and we will not be tolerating it.
Related: Georgia sheriff busted for cruising for sex in a park during police sting operation
jhon_siders
We have the same mess unfolding in Louisville with the LMDP explorers except the officers are charged with sex acts with teen age BOYs !
GayEGO
That is what I thought was happening in Toronto! Maybe they left that out of their story!
GayEGO
For all we know, Ward may have wanted a woman to stick her vibrator up his….derriere!
StupidBoy
I hope someone is researching this phenomenon. I cruised public bathrooms. I read about the best ones online around me and went there. I had no idea that public bathrooms were an attraction for men to meet until I read it. I understand it has been happening for decades or centuries (There is an episode about it in the 50’s in the British TV show “Call the Midwife”). It was an incredible turn-on–the anticipation, the arousal, during a time when open expression of gay sex was taboo. There was no Tindr or Pornhub. A gay man in rural areas had no real connection with anything sexual without going to these types of places and trying to get some human contact. Even if there was no ejaculation, you connected with another human being that felt the same way as you did for a few minutes, then you went back to your boring life in a farm town for another week or month. Gay kids now can have a neon sign above their head and post it on Facebook and flop their dick out on social media apps. 30-, 40-, 50-years ago, we didn’t have that. We were deviants skulking around the shadows of a public rest area in hopes for human contact with someone like us, then went home. That being said, a lot of parents from that generation pass down their sexual repression to their kids (don’t talk about it! don’t do it! don’t look for it!) and they put it to work in their jobs if they are law enforcement officers. That guy jacking off in the bushes of the public park may be your uncle. The guy waiting for sex in the rest stop down the highway could be your grandpa. It will take generations to erase this type of homophobia from the collective psyche of the gay community. And, sexual repression knows no sexual preference. If he is straight, he may be actively trying to repress the sexuality of gay and bi and straight people because of his upbringing. It doesn’t excuse all the people he sent to jail because of his repression, but it may help to explain it a little.
Curtispsf
StupidBoy….you are the antithesis of stupid. May I suggest changing your screen name to include to INCLUDED the word enlightened or rational? In Germany, and specifically the park Tiergarten in Berlin, the police patrol the bushes to insure that the patrons of the park are safe and not threatened in any way. They are not MORALS police. In my humble opinion, law enforcement should not be engaged in any activity which is a throwback to the repressed era of the 1950’s in America. I believe in Oscar Wilde’s credo that consenting adults should be free to engage in whatever conduct they wish “so long as they don’t scare the horses”. Sex and morality policing all in the name of “cleaning up” the park should be prohibited. And please don’t use that age old refrain “but what about the children”? Children shouldn’t be out in parks after dark and, besides, what if they do see someone engaging in sexual conduct. They’re not such gentle snowflakes that they’ll be scarred for life. Get a grip you neo-Victorians.
WindChime
I will report anyone who engages in lewd conducts in public areas to the police. They are selfish and disgusting and deserve to be arrested, locked up in jail, and registered as sex offenders.
crowebobby
“My dear, I don’t care what they do, so long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.” Most often attributed to the actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell commenting on the Oscar Wilde trial, but also attributed to others.
I know of at least one case where the judge threw the case out of court when she believed the arresting officer at led the gay guy on. And this was way back in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s (I can’t remember the exact date.)