‘Amongst the trusted’: How private police chat groups blur and breach ethical lines

It came after defence lawyers had grilled Toronto Police Service Const. Ryan Kotzer over “disparaging comments about black people” in an unofficial 51 Division police chat group.

In August 2021, a Toronto drug case took a dramatic turn when a prosecutor made what the judge called a “highly unusual” request, asking the court to throw out evidence by a key police witness.

It came after defence lawyers had grilled Toronto Police Service Const. Ryan Kotzer over “disparaging comments about black people” in an unofficial 51 Division police chat group.

In another conversation, a different 51 Division officer asked about the pubic hair of a female colleague and whether it was “like a blk chick.”

That vulgarity also found its way into the courts — used to depict the officer who made the comment as racist in a bid to throw out a separate human-trafficking case.

The troubling content of the unofficial Toronto Police Service 51 Division chat groups has been emerging in social media leaks for years.

Screenshots shared with The Canadian Press show officers exchanging pornographic content, rape jokes, complaints about “leftist” judges, and a photo of Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s daughters, with one officer commenting, “I know which one I want.”

But it’s never previously been reported how the conversations were used to try to impeach the credibility of police witnesses in at least two cases.

It’s an example of how courts and police forces are being forced to grapple with the consequences of private chat groups among officers. Such chat groups raise legal and ethical questions, blurring lines between public and private behaviour, while revealing — and potentially obscuring — racism, sexism and other misconduct among officers.