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.
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