Toronto Police’s photos show a smiling police state in Trinity Bellwoods Park [Update]

The captioning added to the photo above is mine, but the photo itself is from the most recent article on the Toronto Police Services’ PR site, which sells their crackdown on fun in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park. The park is located on Queen Street West not far from the downtown core, has long been a gathering place for families, tennis players, and local subcultures in a neighborhood that mixes commercial use, nearby clubs, and a wide array of residents ranging from students to seniors. It used to be considerably more skeevy and unsafe in the 1990s when it was a place where few people went, but the influx of people, including hipsters, raver kids, drum circle types, and others, has actually made it safer and more enjoyable with their hanging out (suburbanites think quiet parks are nice; the reality is that unused public space is dangerous), and gave the place more of a “community” feel. The downside is that some parkgoers have been noisy, unruly, drunk, and urinating in public, but we tolerate that behavior from Mayor Rob Ford, don’t we?

The purpose and “spirit” of the park have been the subject of recent debates, with some residents complaining about noise and public drinking on the park (most of which is hipsters taking swigs of PBR but includes some mothers enjoying wine with their picnic).

The police have stepped up their watch over the park, and are proudly announcing it in their article with photos with the not-so-subtle message of “we’re watching you”. The photos show the cops in a group, either surrounding the serfs — er, citizenry — or in Top Gun-esque lead-wingman formation…but with smiles! Note they way they’re posed: they’re all positioned above the potentially unruly proles. I don’t think that this is the message they were going for; for all I know, they got “punked” by the photographer who set up these poses.

The danger in this sort of messaging is that they’ll make the park less popular, less populated, and quite possibly, more dangerous. There’s a bright side to all this, though: it means that more people are going to Dufferin Grove and Christie Pits parks, which could use the company.

Update: Some eagle-eyed Facebook friends have pointed out that the Toronto Police Services news site takes over the standard scrolling behavior and replaces it with their own. Really, Toronto Police Services, I think you have some control issues — or a branding opportunity. Maybe you could call it “Scroll Patrol”.