Two
thirds approve of murder charges for Forcillo
Despite this, trust in police is high
TORONTO January
20th - In
a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 546 Toronto
adults, as many as two thirds approve of charging Constable James Forcillo with
murder in the shooting death of Sammy Yatim (66%). Fewer than one fifth
disapprove (18%) and a similar proportion don’t share their views (16%).
Approval of the charges is most common to younger respondents (35 to 44 - 75%),
mid income groups ($60K to $80K - 72%), Olivia Chow voters from the last
Mayoral election (88%), residents of the downtown (73%), those who do not trust
Toronto police and those who disagree Toronto weeds out “bad cops” (81%).
Three quarters trust Toronto police
Three
quarters of Toronto adults say they have trust in Toronto’s police (78%) and as
many as one third say they have a “great deal of trust” (33%). Those with the
highest levels of trust include the younger respondents (35 to 45 - 45%) and
the oldest (44%), those in upper income groups ($60K to $80K - 42%), Doug Ford
voters (42%), those who think Toronto’s police recruiting and training weeds
out unfit police officers (43%) and those who disapprove of the murder charges
against Forcillo (56%).
One quarter think Toronto police do not weed out unfit officers
Just
less than one quarter of Torontonians believe the system for recruiting and
training new police officers is not able to screen out those who shouldn’t
serve in the role (23%), while more than a third think it can do this (36%).
The plurality, 4-in-10, doesn’t know (41%).
Few think trial outcome would have changed with locale
In
total, just one third of Torontonians think changing the venue of the trial
would have made a difference to the outcome (37%), about one quarter thinking
it would have benefitted Forcillo (23%) and about half this proportion thinking
it wouldn’t (14%). Close to one half believe the trial outcome would have been
no different after a venue change (45%) and as many as one fifth don’t have an
opinion (19%).
“Torontonians are very
familiar with the Forcillo case, and most see it as appropriate that he was
charged with murder. Despite this, most trust their police force, and expect it
to protect them from rogue officers,” said Forum Research President, Dr. Lorne
Bozinoff.
Lorne Bozinoff, Ph.D. is the president and founder of Forum
Research. He can be reached at lbozinoff@forumresearch.com or at (416)
960-9603.
