There is a broadly reported but unattributed story this morning that someone on Mayor Ford’s staff raised the question of what the mayor’s office should do if it was possible to find the cellphone crack video that has shaken the city. It is said that Mark Towhey, the mayor’s chief of staff, was shocked by what he took to be a suggestion that the video might somehow be obtained and that he called the police. This led to the police asking questions at the mayor’s office and also, apparently, to Mr. Towhey’s dismissal. The story goes that he did not tell the mayor that he was going to call the police. What sound judgement on Mr. Towhey’s part. The act of buying the video from (as we are told) crack traffickers would be one end of criminal extortion. Metro
