Allegations of corruption involving two sons of former police chief William McCormack Sr. mean rough times ahead for a family that has worn its integrity with pride for generations
By JONATHAN FOWLIE, Boston & Globe
Not long after trading his established beat in Regent Park for a spot at the Toronto police union’s head office, Mike McCormack mused to a reporter about how nice it was that morale was finally on the upswing. Just weeks earlier, the Toronto force had been rocked by allegations of theft and corruption on its elite drug squad.
“I think this is just what the troops were looking for after all that bad news,” the beefy son of former police chief William McCormack said in January, speaking of the charity boxing match he had helped organize.
“A chance to let your hair down and have a few good laughs,” he continued, the rowdy machismo of the interforce showdown filling the room around him.
It was not the first time the 42-year-old had shown signs he could fill his father’s lofty shadow. In tough Regent Park, friends say, the young McCormack gained so much respect that criminals had been known to seek him out with their confessions because they knew he would at least be fair, a significant feather in any constable’s cap.
Though his ability to gain respect among both colleagues and criminals quickly earned Mike a sterling reputation, allegations uncovered this week that he was connected to a used-car dealership that police suspect was being run as a money-laundering front suggest a much darker side.
In the neighboring 52 Division, Mike’s oldest brother, William Jr., is also under a shadow.
The 17-year veteran was suspended from his duties on that division’s plainclothes force last week after allegations surfaced that he had been extorting protection money from bars in the entertainment district.
Though only allegations, the tales of corruption now encircling the McCormack family have shocked the city, amid disbelief that a policing dynasty, one that has worn its integrity with such pride for so long, could fall so far from grace.
While their father, William Sr., Toronto’s police chief from 1989 to 1995, has been no stranger to criticism and controversy, the accusations now swirling around his extremely tight family are a much different kind of blow, and likely to be more painful than anything he endured during his 41-year career.
While the former chief has been steadfast in his silence since the scandal broke, friends who know him say he is taking the news “very badly.”
“He was obviously very proud of his kids,” said Bob Cooper, a former Toronto officer who helped the senior Mr. McCormack write two memoirs.
Susan Eng, who often battled the former chief when she headed the police services board, agreed.
“He was, in fact, very, very defensive to his family, and cared very much of anything that could be interpreted as a slight against his own integrity,” she said this week.
“Something like this would hit him extraordinarily hard despite the fact that, of course, we are only at a time of allegation.”
Norm Gardner, who joined the police board in the late 1980s and became friends with the former chief, said: “He was always charming, courteous, and was always a good listener to people who had things to say.” He added that Mr. McCormack has always been a very religious man. “They are an extremely close family, from what I’ve seen.
“Every time they see each other, it’s a hug and a kiss. They’ve had this closeness forever.”
Mr. Cooper said family always came first for the man who, in his professional life, was dubbed the Silver Fox, a reference both to his white hair and to his ability to solve 110 of the 111 killings he investigated while on the homicide squad.
In his time as chief, he was widely credited with keeping the force intact in a turbulent era of police job action and accusations of police racism. At work and home, the Irish Catholic father of five always strove to lead by example.
Perhaps for that reason, Mr. Cooper speculated, four of the family’s five grown children have become police officers.
“You [wear policing] on your heart and your sleeve,” Mr. Cooper said this week.
“He would do that as much as anybody I’ve ever seen.”
Born above a small district police station on the archipelago of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, William Sr. had policing in his blood.
His father, a high-ranking police officer in the British colonial force, was named a member of the British Empire in recognition both of his service and of his charitable work with disabled children.
In his two books, he credits the policing profession -- a career he shared not only with his father, but also with his grandfather -- with providing “a unique vantage point from which to observe my fellow human beings.”
“I have been utterly horrified by crimes of unspeakable cruelty,” he wrote in the preface to his second book, “but I have also been inspired and moved to tears by selfless acts of heroism.”
Even after leaving the force in 1995, he retained a strong allegiance.
At his house near Queensville, where he moved almost 10 years ago, visitors are often greeted by a Toronto Police flag flying high in front of the house.
At the chief’s retirement party in 1995, his son William told a reporter the integrity his father brought to the profession was the principal thing that drew him and his siblings to the force.
“He still thinks and feels like a cop,” William Jr. said at the time. “He’s one of the few officers who’s made it to the top who still knows what’s happening at the bottom.”
Known as an aspiring cop with great contacts and a lot of arrests, William Jr. was a detective constable in the plainclothes unit at 52 Division.
Those who knew the family say William Jr., who was born in Ireland in 1959, has never been married, but they do recall a steady girlfriend he used to bring to family dinners and get-togethers.
An officer since October, 1986, he has remained mostly out of the public eye, except for one time in 1992 when new use-of-force guidelines were introduced requiring officers to make a report every time they unholstered their guns
“We’re not afraid of being investigated [by the SIU],” he told reporters gathered outside the police association offices, “but we want investigations to be impartial.”
Last week, William Jr. was suspended with pay and his unit disbanded after an internal investigation reported he was allegedly implicated in a long-standing protection scheme.
Days after his suspension, it was revealed that his brother Mike, formerly a constable in 51 Division, and now a director with the Toronto Police Association, is also under investigation.
The Globe and Mail learned this week that the force’s internal affairs unit is investigating allegations that Mike was connected to a used-car dealership that police suspect may have been a front for money-laundering and a terminal for stolen cars destined for black markets overseas. It also reported that a numbered Ontario company with ties to him was receiving lucrative commissions from a registered car dealership.
Those who know Mike from his time in Regent Park find the allegations hard to believe.
“He’s a very sweet, loving kind of guy that just seems like a family person,” said Nekisha, 23, who lived in Regent Park before she moved to Etobicoke about two years ago. “Not the kind of guy that would get involved in any kind of scam, or any kind of drug deal. I could put my life down on it.
“I think what they’re doing to him right now, it’s very wrong,” she added, saying the community is shocked by the allegations.
Married to Elizabeth Martin and living in a house not far from where he grew up in Scarborough, Mike used to work as a beat cop in 52 Division. More than nine years ago, and after about five years on the force, he was reassigned to 51 Division, a beat that encompasses the country’s oldest and largest public-housing development.
Through his non-confrontational approach to policing, and his love of playing basketball with neighbourhood kids, Mike developed close bonds with many who still consider the 42-year-old a friend, though he no longer patrols their streets.
The two other police officers in the McCormack family are Jamie, a detective at 53 Division, and Kathy, a sergeant with the Ontario Provincial Police in Whitby. Lisa, Mr. McCormack’s youngest and the only one who opted out of the family business, is a manager with Molson.
As the children have grown, they have remained close, and neighbours who used to live nearby say they remember the McCormack family house as a hive of activity almost every Sunday.
The children would often come for the afternoon to the yellow brick house the family used to rent atop the Scarborough Bluffs, one neighbour said this week, recalling that William Jr. sometimes brought his rottweiler over in the Trans Am he was driving at the time.
In the afternoon, the former chief’s children would play with their own children in the front yard, later retiring inside for a giant family dinner.
Though William Sr. was quite warm with his family, neighbours who lived nearby, until he moved to his new house near Queensville, said the veteran police officer often kept to himself.
“Dad kept his distance,” said Charles Roberts, who used to live across the street from the McCormack home on Larwood Boulevard. “It’s a hard position to be in,” he said of Mr. McCormack’s role as chief of police. “He was always getting criticized.”
During his often controversial tenure as chief, he was criticized for foibles such as wearing a war medal he didn’t earn, as well as for more serious matters such as his handling of a few significant scandals.
One of those with the highest profile was set off in early 1990, after Mr. McCormack’s police force signed a secret deal agreeing to destroy physical evidence in exchange for the resignation of Constable Gordon Junger. A nine-year-veteran officer, Mr. Junger was, at the time, accused of running an escort service and possessing hashish.
The force was again embroiled in scandal the next year after it mishandled a complaint by a former prostitute who said that a constable on the force, Constable Brian Whitehead, had used his badge to extort sexual favours.
Mr. Roberts said that throughout this time, Mr. McCormack was “neighbourly” but preferred to keep to himself, either because people would want to criticize him or ask for favours.
“If you tried to ask a favour. . .there was no way,” said Mr. Roberts, recalling how the former chief refused to pull rank to deal with several noise complaints about the police dogs that lived in the area.
“You could ask, but you’re not going to get it,” he said.
Other former neighbours agreed this week that, while always friendly, the senior Mr. McCormack preferred to keep a low profile on the street.
“They were nice friendly people, but we just knew them as neighbours,” said Colleen Fleming, the woman who used to live next door.
In the summer, the father would pack the car with his 3-metre inflatable fishing dingy and drive to Florida with his family, and occasionally some close friends and colleagues.
It was a sacred three weeks of the year, and one that would not be postponed for anything.
“They were down there when he was made chief of police,” Cecil Vanderwielen, former manager of the Sun-n-Sea resort, recalled this week from his home in Cicero, Ind.
Mr. Vanderwielen remembered keeping the office open until 7 p.m. the night the position was being announced in Toronto because Mr. McCormack and his family were expecting a call.
The McCormack family will need to draw on that closeness now. If all five children come together again for the weekend at their father’s house just north of Toronto, the proud policing dynasty will be struggling with serious allegations.
“It is a sad time for them right now,” Mr. Cooper said. “It’s just at the allegation stage right now,” he quickly pointed out, “but gosh, it sounds awful.”