More than a hundred people in the park in Kensington Market on Tuesday night were shocked to see a city of Toronto van drive right through the park and scrape the whole side on a bollard.

Later the van drive drove through the park on the grass before stopping, apparently unable to negotiate a small hill.

Video from the incident appeared on the popular Instagram and Facebook channel Shitshow.

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A post shared by Anthony Schofield (@shitshow45)

Park users are questioning why the erratic and perhaps intoxicated city worker, who hit a bollard and damaged his vehicle as well as drove through the grassy area of the park, was allowed to drive away by police without being breathalyzed or examined by paramedics.

Just before dusk, the park had filled with many people enjoying the last summer weather, children were playing in the playground, and on the south side a few tents have been set up with people living there in what is not quite yet an encampment.

The video takes place halfway through the incident, and shows the van precipitously parked on the small hill at the south side of the park.

In the video, a man named Anthony speaks to the camera: "Guy dries though the park and slams into a pole. Scares the shit out the place. I mean.. fuck you gonna do right its truck city right…drug city right here."  Then he zooms in on the city logo on the truck and exclaims "what the fuck? He stole a city vehicle? Wow that's more fucked up than I thought. Jesus.."

At this point, Anthony and many other people thought that the driver had stolen the city vehicle and was on a joyride, based on onlooker observations of his walking and driving.

But when police began to question the man they confirmed that he was indeed a city worker. They spoke to him for possibly 15 minutes, examined the scraped bollard and spoke to onlookers.

In a second video on Instagram, Anthony and  another man called Turbo (who witnessed the whole event) are on camera with the van in the background, still parked on the hill.

In the video Anthony says "We have a city worker here who like drove through the whole park, grinded up the side of his car."

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A post shared by Anthony Schofield (@shitshow45)

Turbo says in the background "Po-Po is gonna let him go."

Anthony continues: "And for some reason it's ok…look how he's even parked here.. he drove on the grass. What's his jurisdiction here? He's not streets to homes or any of that kind of stuff. That’s just strange. There's obvious signs of trauma to the car on the side. He came in through over there, drove the through park.."

Turbo adds "He scraped the pole over there…and ended up driving through the encampment..."

Anthony muses "And then for all the cops to show up here and be like what the fucks going on?"

No one saw the police breathalyse the man, nor did any paramedics show up to the scene.

After the second video, police then allow the driver to get back in the van and start driving away. People in the park were yelling "you are just gonna let him drive away?"

My perspective on the incident

Prior to these videos, I was sitting in the park with friends when I saw the van marked with "City of Toronto" mount the curb and began to drive up the pedestrian path. The plate was illegible.

We were all shocked when that this van started to scrape the bollard in the centre of the path, damaging the vehicle as it scraped the entire length of the van hard.

There was lots of room on the path to drive without scraping the bollard. He then drove up to where the children's splashed pad and the bathroom entrance.

The driver, an older white man possibly in his 70s, got out of the van and started staggering around. To myself, and to dozens of other onlookers, he appeared to be very intoxicated, though its possible that he was extremely confused or having some kind of medical issue.

I passed right by him. To me he appeared barely able to walk, his eyes seemed glazed. I tired to speak to him but he was not speaking coherently. Some onlookers made a call to 911 to report a possible drunk driver.

The driver left the vehicle (unlocked) and went into the bathrooom with a plunger. Later, he got back into the vehicle and started to try and drive out of the park.

The driver began to back up the truck extremely slowly, but then stopped. He tried to back up again but then stopped. He finally turned on his hazard lights.

After several minutes of hestiation, the driver then decided to give up on backing up and started driving right through the grass of the park towards Wales Street.

This took him over some grass where people often are picnicking or laying the grass, and between two tents of the encampment.

Once he reached the hill by the curb (a bit steep but easily negotiable by a vehicle) the driver just stopped the car and stayed on the hill apparently unable to decide what to do, and stayed there for several minutes as onlookers were on the phone with emergency services.

Eventually, police arrived. At the same time as Anthony from the instagram channel Shitshow arrived in the park and after speaking to a few people began to film the intagram videos.

Eventually police allowed him to get in his car and drive, which upset dozens of onlookers including myself.

When allowed to drive again, the driver appeared to have trouble deciding how to get down the small hill, but eventually drove on Wales Street then down to Augusta, then sat at the crossroads for a long time trying to figure out which way to go on Augusta  (a one way street going north).

The police were in their vehicle right behind the damaged city van, escorting it. The driver eventually started driving north on Augusta Ave, very slowly and in a hesitant manner, tailed by the police car.

Dozens of people were shaking their heads and yelling things like "why is he driving? He shouldn’t be driving!"

When a short description of the incident and the Instagram video were sent the city for comment. Russell Baker, Manager, Media Relations and Issues Management, City of Toronto, responded by email: "The City of Toronto can confirm – after an investigation in partnership with the Toronto Police Service – that the City staff member was performing assigned work duties at Bellevue Square Park and did not perform any of the alleged activities."

Which leaves me wondering.. which alleged activities did he not perform? Did he not hit the pole with the vehicle? Did he did not plunge the toilet? Did he not drive through the park?

The damage to the vehicle is in the video, and I have photo on my phone of the scrape mark on the bollard, the white paint from the city van is still on it.

The city van is clearly in the video stopped on the hill in the grass, an illogical driving route through an encampment rather than staying on the cement path like city vehicles normally do.

Of course, no one cannot say purely from observation if the worker was intoxicated or not. But when several dozen people conclude a man is either intoxicated or having a medical emergency, and a city vehicle is damaged, shouldn't that person do a breathlyser test?

Shouldn't he be examined at least by paramedics to determine if he should be driving or if he needs medical attention?

When an incident happens in front of more than a hundred people, with dozens of closer witnesses, and a person- city worker or no- is driving erratically around children playing in a park, and damaging city property, and the city says that it not happen… how can we trust the city to tell us the truth?

One is reminded of last year's Matlow bathroom debacle, a debate over whether the city has been telling the truth about park bathrooms being open which ended up with city councillor Matlow being fined for criticizing a City staff person. 

Park users have questions. They do not deserve to be gaslighted. This is not the 1950s and if there is evidence of drunk driving it should be taken seriously. We have the technology.

And regardless of the reason, if someone is driving erratically they should not drive themselves home, for their own protection as well.

All of us (people enjyoing the park, people living in tents, children playing in the playground) deserve to be safe. For me, the the worst part is being told that nothing happened, when not just myself but dozens of people saw it with our own eyes.