Toronto artist seeks explanation for police raid
Last Updated: Monday, July 14, 2008 | 8:24 AM ET
CBC News
A musician is asking for an explanation after the Toronto police guns and gangs task force raided his home.
Kevin Clarke, who is known as Kamikaze, lives and works at his home near Oakwood Avenue and Vaughan Road.
Five weeks ago police broke down the door to the house.
"The door got kicked off, 'Boom! Metro police! Everybody get down! Boom, boom!' And then I heard two bombs, and then after everything, I realized one was a flash bomb and one was a smoke bomb," said Clarke.
"SWAT you know, all black bulletproof vests, boots, masks, helmets some big-ass guns or whatever. They ran in," he said.
But more than a month after the raid Clarke still doesn't know what the the officers were looking for.
"It was a massive operation, over 50 police involved, ambulances, buses, police buses, all kinds of stuff were out there. The street was quarantined. The whole area was blocked off and it was a really big operation for nothing," he told CBC News.
Lawyer Bob Ebrahimzadeh says police were wrong to target Clarke.
"He's a legitimate businessman with a group of friends who are in the rap industry. Perhaps that makes the police uncomfortable. We're not certain but we're trying to find the answers before we proceed further," the lawyer said.
"He's been a community leader and has looked to build up the community and the youth of his community with a positive image of what can be accomplished. So he's rather puzzled as to why the police are treating him in this fashion," said Ebrahimzadeh.
Toronto police will only say they had reasonable grounds to conduct the search and that a judge who granted the warrant agreed.
The information used to obtain it is sealed.
The raid echoes another one carried out a few weeks earlier in Scarborough.
Heavily armed officers searched the home of Brian Henry, a prominent black youth worker, but only found a small amount of marijuana.
Share Tools
Latest Toronto News Headlines
- McGuinty backs Wi-Fi in schools
- Premier Dalton McGuinty is shrugging off concerns raised by an Ontario teachers' union about Wi-Fi in public schools. more »
- Ontario 'confinement room' arrest made
- A 44-year-old Oshawa, Ont., man has been arrested in connection with the discovery of a possible confinement room inside an abandoned Pickering farmhouse that later burned to the ground. more »
- Immigrant babies often wrongly deemed underweight
- Some babies born to immigrant parents are incorrectly classified as underweight — which could lead to unnecessary tests — when they're actually within the normal range for their ethnic groups, Canadian doctors warn. more »
- Environment Canada forecasts messy commute Thursday
- Environment Canada says it could be a messy commute in parts of southern Ontario on Thursday morning. more »
Top News Headlines
- Immigrants the proudest Canadians, poll suggests

- Most Canadians feel immigrants are just as likely to be good Canadian citizens as people who were born here and don't object to them keeping their original citizenship, according to a recent Environics survey. more »
- NDP MPs urged to scrap gun registry in final vote
- Public Safety Minister Vic Toews urges opposition MPs to break party ranks and side with the government during tonight's vote on scrapping the long-gun registry. more »
- Honduras prison fire kills hundreds
- Trapped inmates screamed from their cells as a fire swept through a Honduran prison, killing at least 300 inmates in one of the world's deadliest fires in decades, authorities said Wednesday. more »
- Ocean Ranger sinking still haunts 30 years later
- The violent storm that sank the Ocean Ranger, killing 84 men, still haunts people 30 years after the disaster on the Grand Banks east of Newfoundland. more »
- Toronto NBA fans experience 'Lin-sanity'
- Ontario 'confinement room' arrest made
- Drummond report on Ontario spending due today
- RIDE's top cop suspended for alleged intoxication
- Mandatory gun sentence struck down by Ontario judge
- McGuinty hints at pay freeze for public sector execs
- McGuinty backs Wi-Fi in schools
- Toronto doctor's 'magic pill' goes viral
- Woodbridge family uses social media in search for transplant

