WARMINGTON: Councillor goes to bat for home invasion victims

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When it comes to fighting off armed home invaders, you can count on City Councillor Brad Bradford to go to bat for his family.

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And if it means saving them, he’s prepared to play a little inside baseball.

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When you have a Toronto City Councillor with a baseball bat next to his bed ready for intruders, who can blame average citizens for also doing so? Certainly not everybody in the dangerous Greater Toronto Area is interested in following York Regional Police Chief Jim MacSween’s advice to “comply” with armed criminals who invade your home.

Count Bradford as one of them.

“As a parent of a two and a four-year-old, I keep a baseball bat in the bedroom,” said the Ward 19 Beaches-East York Councillor, who ran for mayor in the 2023 byelection and is expected to do so again next year. “It’s an old aluminum softball bat.”

He also carries a newer composite Louisville Slugger in his car.

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“They are for playing baseball,” Bradford said.

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But with one bat at home and one in his car, he’s prepared if he ever finds himself in a situation like slain Vaughan father Abdul Aleem Farooqi sadly found himself in last Sunday.

He takes no chances. And just this summer, Bradford had an intruder break into his car in the driveway of his home. Thankfully the police arrived and made an arrest before it was stolen or emptied out.

But that’s pretty close to home.

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The Councillor told the Toronto Sun, “In my journeys and discussions across Toronto, I haven’t met a father who doesn’t have a baseball bat in their bedroom.”

That’s the new normal in crime-ridden Canada. On a panel Thursday, Newstalk 1010 host John Moore asked Bradford, “Would you use it?”

He hopes he never has to. But he didn’t rule it out.

“It depends on the situation,” he said, adding as a husband and a father any person may find themselves in a dilemma where “you have to defend yourself and your family and you do everything you can in that moment.”

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It’s hard to argue with Bradford on this point. He’s speaking the same logical language Ontario Premier Doug Ford and much of the public speaks. They both question why people being attacked in their own homes are the ones being criminally charged.

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But it’s not vigilante justice they support – it’s common-sense survival.

“I agree with Premier on his stance” on the “castle doctrine” because “it’s a discussion we have to have.” Both he and the Premier have had criminals violating their vehicles and both have constituents who have been victimized by carjackers and home invaders.

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Public trust that overworked police will always be able to respond on time, that they will catch the violent offenders, that the courts will keep them in custody without bail, and that judges will give them long prison sentences, is broken.

People have lost faith. And they don’t feel safe.

Of course, this debate became louder when 46-year-old husband and father Abdul Aleem Farooqi was shot to death in his Kleinburg home while trying to protect his four-year-old daughter who had a gun pointed her. It’s the final straw.

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Chief Jim MacSween stirred much emotion by suggesting people try “hiding” in the house and “comply” and be the “best witness possible.” Many felt police were blaming Farooqi for trying to protect his family.

While York Regional Police did not provide the response time to the 911 call from Farooqi’s on Wednesday, the Chief said on Thursday that any suggestion it was “12 or 13 minutes” was “inaccurate misinformation.”

Const. Lisa Moskaluk told the Toronto Sun on Thursday, “We answered in 40 seconds” and the “first officer was on scene in four minutes” and “he made entry into the house in six minutes.”

It’s certainly a reasonable response time compared to average 911 call times, but it’s an eternity if you are facing bandits with guns.

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Meanwhile, MacSween doubled down on his position that people should not take matters into their own hands.

“I’ve been doing this job for 36 years,” MacSween told Moore. “It is my professional experience more often than not, usually suspects are targeting homes for monetary gain for property” and “I did say yesterday, and I will reiterate it, property is not worth the life of anyone so I do believe the best advice” is “to give over your property and call us immediately and let us take it from there.”

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There is a video posted to social media making fun of this idea – a parody that had a mock victim lampooning how he had all his valuables at his unlocked front door and was ready to serve robbers a cold beverage.

It won’t be like that if they go into Bradford’s house.

Wether to wave a white flag and surrender, wait for police to respond, or fight for your life are decisions more and more Canadians are being faced with in 2025.

Bradford is one Canadian dad who has already decided what he would do.

jwarmington@postmedia.com

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