Man accused of touching, filming kids near school soccer event: Toronto cops
Toronto Police said officers responded on Friday at about 12:15 p.m. to a call for a suspicious incident at Earlscourt Park in the St. Clair Ave.-Caledonia Rd. Area.
Police alleged that a man was around the tournament when he approached a child and picked them up and placed them on his shoulders. Cops said the child's mother confronted the man and he put the child down.
The man was then seen filming the children on his phone, then asking the children their names, ages, phone numbers and addresses.
The man was also seen standing near the playground committing an indecent act. He approached another child, grabbed them by the arm and asked the child to come with him, but the child broke away from the man and ran away.
CRIME SCENE: Ajax man accused of sexually assaulting another teen girl
CRIME SCENE: Bowmanville man, 22, accused of sex assault, uttering death threats
The man fled the area in an unknown direction.
He is described as 5-foot-8, 30-40 years old, with a slim build. He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a cream and pink-coloured shirt.
Anyone with information is asked to call police at 416-808-1300, or contact Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), or at 222tips.com.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
N.S. reform of care of people with disabilities behind in housing 'complex' cases
HALIFAX — There's been a surge in the number of Nova Scotians with complex disabilities stuck in temporary housing, according to recent figures released by the province. This rise in what are called "temporary shelter arrangements," or TSAs, operated by for-profit and non-profit agencies has occurred despite a plan by the province to decrease their use over the past two years. The Department of Social Development describes the temporary housing as being needed whenever a person with a complex disability is in urgent need of housing, and options for a permanent home have been "explored and exhausted." Usually, the person is placed in an apartment, with one-on-one care, but without a long-term plan to improve their lives. "The infrastructure to shift away from the temporary model is slow. It's not happening as quickly as anticipated," said Harman Singh, director of Breton Ability Centre — a non-profit agency in Sydney, N.S. that houses people with disabilities, which has been asked to oversee eight people in temporary shelters. The province introduced a sweeping, five-year reform plan for the care and housing of people with disabilities in 2023. It was the result of a landmark court decision that found there was systemic discrimination against people with disabilities. The plan called for a sharp decrease in the number of people with disabilities in temporary housing arrangements by 2025 but the opposite has occurred. The recent government update on the plan, referred to as "The Remedy," indicated there were 89 people in the temporary arrangements in early 2024, but as of April 1 this year, there was a 49 per cent increase to 146 people. This contrasts with the plan's target of reducing the number of people in temporary housing by 40. Singh said Breton Ability is gradually closing down its larger facility with 68 residents but has been asked to increase temporary shelter arrangements. Some of the arrangements are lasting for years, she added. The lack of permanent solutions isn't working well, as it makes it difficult to attract staff or to spend money needed to ensure the housing arrangements are suitable, she said. For example, Singh said in one case her agency has been housing a person in a temporary apartment since 2021, but it has been unable to invest in much-needed upgrades due to uncertainty about whether they are expected to stay there permanently. If the arrangement were permanent, "we could look at long-term renovations to the house, seek grants from different departments and we would look to raise funds to make the backyard more suitable ... we would look at all these different factors and make it better," said Singh. Data released to The Canadian Press through the Freedom of Information Act from January 2024 to last month show the majority of temporary shelter arrangements were provided by five private-sector agencies for 94 people. They received $34 million in 2024, and $20 million for half of 2025, according to the documents. Some people in TSAs cost about $150,000 to up to about $500,000 annually, the records say. However, a separate freedom of information response from the Department of Social Development to The Canadian Press for the same period says there were no records of "audits or reports on safety and quality of care" done on these private agencies. They also said they wouldn't provide estimates of how long people are remaining in the TSAs. In its recent annual report on the plan, the province said it wasn't meeting deadlines for decreasing the numbers because there had been delays in hiring and training staff to oversee the conversion of the system. The department said in an email Friday that so far 24 of the 146 people in the temporary shelter arrangements — about 16 per cent of the total — have been assigned staff to plan their future care and placements in the community. Maria Medioli, director of the provincial disability support program, said in an interview Thursday that the five-year plan — which has committed over $200 million in spending over the first two years — is the first major effort to deal with the TSA issue. Medioli said some of the growth in TSA numbers has been the result of people with "deeply complex issues" being discharged by a care home or a hospital without any destination, and the alternative is homelessness. Asked about oversight of service providers, Medioli said the department receives financial statements from the private-sector service providers but doesn't "generally audit providers unless there is a reason." She added there has been one complaint of financial irregularities by a private-sector provider that is being investigated, but no complaints of safety or quality problems. "I don't like them (TSAs). They are temporary. ... It was done in an emergency and we didn't have the infrastructure to make it anything but temporary. Through the (plan) we're building that infrastructure," she said. However, Kim Long, vice chair of the Disability Rights Coalition, said in an interview Thursday that her group is concerned by the growing numbers. "I'd like to know where (the government) is in the process of establishing a baseline of health and safety. ... The thing that we're most concerned about is what is that experience (of living in a temporary shelter arrangement) like?" Long said her advocacy organization wants to hear directly from families and people in temporary shelter arrangements, to learn how the arrangements work and "what they are experiencing." "We need to hear in order to get the full story behind the numbers," she said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 28, 2025. Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Top tips to avoid bike theft, and what to do if it happens to you
It's a gut-wrenching moment — going to hop on your bike, only to discover it's not where you left it, even though you locked it. Anna Schlieneber knows the feeling all too well. "I locked my bike up. It had a U-lock and a cable lock on it, but I guess it didn't secure it well enough because when I came back down it was gone," she said. It happened last weekend, sometime during the 90 minutes that Schlieneber was visiting a friend in Centretown. "It's kind of violating. It's a piece of property that I really value. Like I use it for exercise, for activity, for getting around downtown, and it's just really upsetting," she said. Ottawa police say bike thefts in the city were actually on the decline from 2018 until last year, when they started ticking back up. "[In 2018] we were at an average of about 1,700 bikes stolen per year — and keep in mind, this is just what's reported and the information that we have — versus now we're seeing about 1,400," Const. Derek Thompson told CBC. Thompson works with the Ottawa Police Service's central neighborhood resource team, and says Centretown is still the city's hot spot for bike theft. But it can happen anywhere, especially without the right precautions. How to avoid bike theft Here are Thompson's best tips to prevent your prized possession from being stolen: Lock your bike in a visible public area. "Choose well-lit, very open, highly visible areas with ... very visible bike racks, bike racks that are fixed and immovable," Thompson advised. "What we want to do is create a situation where it certainly doesn't give them an opportunity to spend a lot of time working to defeat that locking mechanism." Use a hardy lock. The most reliable kind of lock is made of high-grade steel, which is much more difficult to sever with bolt cutters or other tools. Lock it up properly. Thompson said the best method is to loop the lock through the front wheel and bike frame, then secure it to a fixed rack or similar object. For extra protection, secure the back wheel with a second lock if possible. Register your bike with 529 Garage. It's a free anti-theft app that lets you upload a photo of your bike, the serial number and any other unique features to help identify it. Police use the app frequently to help reconnect recovered bikes with their owners. "It is a go-to resource for us to be able to identify whether a bike is stolen, and to immediately connect with the owner of that property," Thompson said. You can pick up a sticker to indicate your bike has been registered at Ottawa police headquarters on Elgin Street or through 529 Garage. What to do if your bike is stolen Thompson said if you witness a bike theft in progress, call 911. Don't call the non-emergency line or report online. Don't engage with the thief, but if possible take photos or videos of them in the act to help in any police investigation. If your own bike is stolen, Thompson said the best course of action is to file an official police report. Follow these steps, he said, and you just might see your stolen bike again. "Sometimes the greatest rewards in our job are returning something that's extremely valuable to somebody's possession, and the smiles on their faces, endless expressions of gratitude. I mean, those are what really makes our day," Thompson said.


New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
How Parenting Changed After Etan Patz
It was 1979, and Nils Johnson-Shelton had a lot in common with a classmate named Etan Patz. Both were 6-year-old boys with bowl cuts, the sons of artists living in lofts in SoHo. They rode the same bus to the same elementary school, where they both attended first grade. On the morning of May 25 that year, Etan went missing and was never found. His disappearance not only shocked New York City; it was later credited as the event that forever altered parenting, a word that had only recently entered the lexicon. From that terrible day, the notion that children in America should be left to their own devices — to run with their friends, climb trees, fall down, get up and keep running — changed. Parenting transformed, too, as mothers and fathers grew more intense, more fearful, more riddled with anxiety about threats, real and imagined, that children newly seemed to face. 'Etan's case is foundational,' said John E. Bischoff III, a vice president at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 'It made parents more aware and concerned for their own children's safety.' The biggest change Mr. Johnson-Shelton recalls from his childhood was that he no longer rode the bus to school. Instead, he would clamber onto his father's bike and the two of them would rattle across the cobblestone streets of TriBeCa. 'I was so young that I didn't put the two together,' he said recently. It never occurred to him that the bike rides were a result of what had happened to Etan. 'I just thought it was an awesome thing to do with my dad.' Last week, after a federal appeals court reversed the conviction of Pedro Hernandez, a former bodega worker who was found guilty in 2017 of kidnapping and killing Etan, the case returned to the spotlight, inspiring a new round of conversations about how to raise children. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.