Chief Myron Demkiw and a blast from the Plast
https://dianebederman.com/chief-myron-demkiw-and-a-blast-from-the-plast/
December 19, 2022, Ukrainian Canadian Myron Demkiw, a 30-year veteran of the Toronto Police Services, was sworn in as the chief of police in Toronto. Mr. Demkiw, who was born to Ukrainian parents and raised in Toronto, grew up as a proud member of his community and was an active member of Plast Ukrainian Scouting Organization in his youth. During the Second World War, Plast scouts were used as allies by Nazi Germany. After the war, the Plast organization was preserved among Ukrainian diaspora in Australia, Argentina, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.
Plast is a Ukrainian youth organization for patriotic, inclusive self-development. Patriotic, because Plast nurtures a love of the Ukrainian community and fosters a willingness to work for its wellbeing. Plast members are effective citizens of countries in which they live. Inclusive – because Plast encourages its members to fulfill their potential, able to both act independently and to cooperate in a group and acquire leadership skills. In Canada, Plast established branches across the country. Today there are Plast centres in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, St.Catharines, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary. Plast in Canada aided in the development of the reborn organization in Ukraine, often with the support and sponsorship of Canadian government programs.
Mr. Demkiw is the top police official in a city of some 3 million people, heading the largest municipal police agency in Canada. Under his command, he oversees 5,000 police officers and 2,000 civilian employees with a budget of 1.2 billion dollars. Mr. Demkiw studied law at the University of Toronto, later completed university courses in policing, management and psychology, and graduated from the Police Leadership Program at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He said:
“Although I have many priorities in my new role, my first is improving trust in our service and working with our communities to earn and maintain that trust. Secondly, under my leadership, we will accelerate police reform and the professionalization of the Service by continuing to collaborate with our communities to implement their recommendations and by exploring new opportunities to become the modern, community-centric Service our city deserves and expects. And, as my third priority, I will continue working with our members and residents, community organizations, government agencies and our partners in law enforcement to ensure that every resident in every neighbourhood is safe and thriving.”
His commitment is honourable but it seems the Jewish community is not under his protection. Reported in The Toronto Sun:
The knock against the Toronto Police Service over the past 19 months is that they have engaged in two-tier policing. Specifically, when it comes to policing protests that are pro-Palestinian, in many cases outright pro-Hamas, that TPS takes a hands-off approach – that is when they aren’t delivering them coffee and donuts.
The Toronto Police Service spent 20 million Canadian dollars—in 2024 to maintain security at protests connected to Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group.
Police officers responded to more than 2,000 “unplanned events(mostly anti-Israel rallies)” and about 40% of the money spent on security went to costs like overtime and call-back pay, per the report.
“When the protests first started on Oct. 8 in downtown Toronto, if the Toronto police had cracked down and used the laws that exist against unlawful assembly, against masking, and if they would have laid charges against disseminating hate and against advocating for genocide of the Jewish people, then they would have stopped these rallies in their tracks before they got so entrenched.”
Demkiw seems to me to be a tad prejudiced against the Jews but OK with Islam and their repeated lies about the “Nakba:”
Demkiw sent out a missive to his officers which states that the Jews ethnically cleansed the “Palestinians” from Israel.
The event guide reads:
“Nakba Dayalso known as the Palestinian catastrophe, commemorates the ethnic cleansing of Palestine starting on May 15th, 1948. The date marks the destruction of Palestinian land and mass displacement of the Palestinian population.The Nakba is a central aspect for Palestinian national identity, marking the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israel war.”
This is all within the first paragraph of the main body of the guide on how officers should police the event.
Another source revealed that both Muslim and Jewish officers have expressed concern at the lack of leadership by Chief Myron Demkiw on this file and a recent meeting between these officers and the chief ended with people yelling. Demkiw also has Muslim officers suggesting that the October 7 attack on Israeli civilians was a good thing as it brought in more converts to Islam.
Back in January 2024, two police officers brought coffee to Muslim protesters who were making life difficult for Jews in their community. “The coffee was bought for us, but police won’t let them in. So the police are now becoming our little messengers between us.” Why would police officers think this is a good thing? The Police chief expressed concern. “Let me be clear and unequivocal: our commitment to keeping our city’s Jewish community safe is unwavering. We are doing everything we can in the locations that have been targeted for demonstration to uphold and enforce the law.”
Really.
I don’t remember reading anything from Demkiw about the March for Israel, or protecting the Jews from Muslim protesters. Seems he was asked to stop the hateful counter protests by MP Roman Baber.
Calling a planned counter protest – dubbed Walk Against Israel – against the 56th annual United Jewish Appeal’s Walk With Israel concerning, Baber urged Demkiw and Chow to ensure the laws are strictly enforced.
“I love Toronto Police,” Baber wrote on X.
“But its Leadership has largely turned a blind eye to the hate crimes that terrorize Toronto’s Jewish Community.”
Sue-Ann Levy reported:
“For days and weeks before the event — now in its 55th year — terrorist sympathizers took to social media to threaten the Jewish community with massive numbers of counter-protesters, even allegedly those flown in who wreaked havoc on Amsterdam during last November’s Maccabi soccer match. It was likely an intimidation tactic; however, some of the more radicalized did go so far as to threaten Jews with death. In the end, only 100 Hamasniks turned up — many of them masked to hide their identities — and were shockingly escorted up Bathurst St by police to their protest zone as they screamed and shouted Jew-hatred.”
Chief Myron Demkiw, has been repeatedly criticized for emboldening the vile and intimidating terrorist sympathizers by essentially babysitting them at heated protests.
I, too, can attest to the fact Demkiw was more concerned about the Jew haters than those who marched peacefully for Israel.
Let’s put this into perspective:
A total of 84 hate crimes have been reported in 2024 thus far, with 56 per cent of those classified as antisemitic in nature. In the period since Oct. 7, anti-LGBTQ hate crimes were the second-most reported type of incident, followed by anti-Black hate and then what Demkiw described as anti-Arab, Muslim and Palestinian hate.
Warnings have been sent to the Jewish community in Canada because of an increased threat by terrorists against Israelis and Jews in Canada. Haven’t heard similar warnings for any other group. Demkiw, though, is concerned about significant under-reporting of Islamophobia. Hmmm
Maybe the Toronto police can take a page from German police.
Why does Police Chief Demkiw seem so concerned with protecting Muslims and but not the Jewish community which has been under attack since October 7, 2023?
Could it be his upbringing?
Police Chief Demkiw is a proud member of Plast.
In May 2021, Ukrainian Scouts from Plast Youth Organization honored the Nazi SS Galizia Division at the memorial near Brody, where the SS Division was defeated by the Red Army. In May 2020, an exhibition of stamps and envelopes was set up in honor of the Nazi SS Galizia Division at the central Lvov’s Post Office. In April 2019, a poster honoring the 76th anniversary of the Division was unveiled in Kiev’s central Maidan square.
In 2017, the Times of Israel reported that Ukrainians chanted, “Jews out!” during a torchlit march celebrating the birthday of Ukrainian nationalist and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose troops killed thousands of Jews in the Second World War, in addition to more than 100,000 others, mostly Poles and Russians. Among those marching in the event were hundreds of children, members of a nationalist group known as “Plast.”
The event was attended by thousands in Kiev. Bandera’s portrait was held up while someone shouted the anti-Semitic slogan over a loudspeaker and the crowd quickly picked up the chant.
In the 1920’s the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists was founded, and one of the co-founders was Stepan Bandera, a Nazi who served alongside the Wehrmacht during Operation Barbarossa.
The list of the OUN’s atrocities is long and well-documented
- The Lvov pogrom of July, 1941in which several thousand civilians, mostly Jews, were brutally tortured and murdered.
- The massacre of Babi Yarnear Kiev between 1941 and 1943, in which Ukrainian nationalists were complicit in the murder of tens of thousands of people including Jews and Ukrainians loyal to the Soviet Union.
- The liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Rivnein July 1942, where over five thousand people were killed.
- The razing of the Belarusian village of Khatynin March, 1943.
- The massacre at Wołyń, a region in Nazi-occupied Poland that is now part of present-day Ukraine. There, between 1943 and 1945, more than 100,000 Poles were slaughtered, along with several thousand Ukrainians who were thought to be “Soviet sympathizers.”
In 2016, on the birthday of Nazi mass-murderer Roman Shukhevich, Plast stated on Facebook:
“On June 30, 1907, Roman Shukhevich, Plast member, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was born! In Plast, Shukhevich learned organizational skills, acquired a steely will and boundless sacrifice — qualities that are necessary for a military commander. Chuprinka (one of Roman Shukhevich’s aliases) is the ideal for the struggle of Ukraine, devotion and the will to win! For his work in the organization, he received the highest strata degree — the Hetman’s brace!”
Shukhevich and his unit known as “Nightingale” killed thousands of Jews and reduced the city of Lvov from a population of 500,000 to just 150,000.
Plast also admires the fighters of the Nazi SS Division Galicia. In 2008, a monument to the members of this Nazi SS group was installed at Lychakiv cemetery in Lvov.
“Senior, already mature Plast citizens…must take part in the public and political life of their nation. It is their main duty and one of the most important forms of service to the homeland.”
After the Maidan coup in 2014, members of Plast successively held public office and these appointments were all joyfully recorded on social media.
In December 2019, the Verkhovnaya Rada adopted a law on state recognition and support of the Plast National Scout Organisation of Ukraine. That law actually provided the basis for broad state support for an organisation that was similar to the notorious Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) which subjected young people to indoctrination. It is clear what such indoctrination can lead to if we recall that nearly all UPA(Ukrainian Insurgent Army) commanders, including Stepan Bandera, Roman Shukhevich and Vasiliy Kuk, were members of Plast: Plast, which openly declared its connection to Ukrainian nationalist and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera, whose troops killed thousands of Jews in the Second World War.
Adolf Hitler talking to Grand Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
Hmmm. Is it possible Demkiw’s affiliation with Plast has affected his loyalties and his ability to care for ALL Torontonians?
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