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Who keeps attacking the Parkside Drive speed camera?��In the past six months, the High Park fixture’s been cut or knocked down more times than a retro video game player has lives.

(Four times, in all, including, most recently, on Good Friday. Good Friday, lousy outcome.)

My editor calls. Says it’s a case big enough for the Star’s 37th best* gumshoe detective/investigative journalist.��And, just like that, Scoop Mudhar is on it. (*There is a no official list. Strictly my personal personnel assessment.)

First stop? The scene of the crimes.

It’s a small edge of High Park, used by dog walkers and others ambling into the parkland. Here sits, on good days at least, Toronto’s most notorious automated speed enforcement (ASE) camera.��

It’s overlooking Parkside Drive, a short but seductive piece of road, lined by bucolic High Park to the west and, on the east, a series of character-laden homes stretching up and looking down on the street.

The camera here is the busiest in the city, prompting more than 65,000 tickets and racking up $7 million for the city’s silk purses. The fastest of the lot was clocked at 154 km/h.

The truth is, it can feel hard��not��to speed up or down this 2.5-kilometre stretch. The city calls it an “arterial road,” and, on the west side, there is no quicker way to zip up or down from Lake Shore Boulevard to Bloor Street.

I check in with the fuzz about how the investigation into the latest incident is going.

“Police are investigating the most recent vandalism,” TPS spokesperson Cindy Chung tells me. “There is no suspect information at this time.”

No suspects? As the kids would say, that’s a little suss. Twenty-one thousand of ‘em drive down Parkside Drive every day.��How about anyone who has ever gotten a ticket on this stretch? Maybe start looking at people tagged with��multiple tickets from the camera would be a place to start, coppers?

If police catch the mugs, it could cost them a pretty penny.��Chung says that depending of the vandalism, the culprit could face a charge of mischief over/under $5,000.

And let’s get something straight. I get why people think speed cameras are rats. They are automated stool pigeons that have become targets. The city reports there have been more than 325 incidents of vandalism against ASE’s this year. In September 2024, an organized crew vandalized eight cameras across pc28����— although Parkside was spared.

Last week, York Region Police asked for witnesses in nine incidents in Vaughan where 9 cameras were targeted since January. And unlike Hogtown, speed cameras in Vaughan are high up on hydro poles, needing a long ladder to get access. That takes effort. Toronto’s speed cameras are much shorter and close to the ground, but the Parkside Cutter is also pretty industrious.��

Parkside Drive is its own special case. This road is a place where speed has killed and this camera’s a repeat victim.��

The first attack came just days after City Council voted on a street redesign including putting bike lanes on Parkside Drive in November. After it was replaced, it was knocked down again within 24 hours. Both times it was cut off at its base.��

Once replaced again, it stood for about a month, then was cut down on Dec. 30. This time, though, it was uglier. The camera was cut in the middle of the post, leaving a four-foot-high stump. The severed camera and post were dragged about 200 metres through the woods into High Park’s Duck Pond, where it was sent to sleep with the fishes, Godfather-style.

The post and camera are heavy, so it’s fair to say it was someone pretty strong or who had help lugging it.

They also needed tools. Some reports say the��city believes an angle grinder was used. There are those who think they know better.��

Faraz Gholizadeh is with Safe Parkside, and he’s seen��video evidence caught by a resident’s camera of the third chopping. Safe Parkside is the neighbourhood group that was started years ago bringing together people in the area who were concerned about how unsafe speeding on the street was.

Their concerns were crystallized after Valdemar. 71, and Fatima Avila, 69, were hit and killed by Artur Kotula who came roaring down this road going 124 kph, causing a multi-vehicle chain reaction crash, injuring people and mangling the couple’s Red Toyota Matrix. Kotula’s now serving 6 and a half years in the clink.��

Gholizadeh��says he knows the suspect’s weapon of choice.��

“The third time it was cut down, it was a single person who was doing the act. I work in construction, so, the tool that they used is most likely a reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade. If you get a nice fresh blade, you’d be surprised how quickly you can cut through a post like that.”

Gholizadeh’s been trying to slow things down on Parkside and also sending out emails��to the media that the camera has been knocked or cut down. Again. And again. And again.��

The city isn’t on the hook to replace and repair the cameras, that’s up to Verra Mobility, which has the contract for the ASEs. I reached out to Valerie Schneider, media relations for the Australian-based company. They declined to chat because of the investigation.

“This is an act of vandalism against the cameras that help protect citizens and improve safety on our roads,” Verra said in a statement.��“Once found, this person(s) will be held accountable.”

Even when it’s been upright, the camera hasn’t done its job at all, argues��Gholizadeh.��

“If you spend some time sitting by the camera, you’ll notice brake lights come on as motorists approach the camera but otherwise, they’re speeding down most of the street,” he says.

“It’s failed miserably, and our city has not introduced any solutions beyond a camera that’s continually being chopped down.”

Gholizadeh says his concern hasn’t been about catching the culprits; he’s trying to make the road safer for everyone.��

I size him up. He sounds like he knows a little too much. I have to ask: was he involved?��

“I swear I’ve had nothing to do with it. I just want the street safe,” says Gholizadeh.

I believe him. Despite its ineffectiveness, he says they’ll take more speed cameras all along the road. Anything to help slow cars down.��

This last time it was replaced, Verra surrounded the post with a boxy exterior giving it a fatter and thicker base — a little more junk in its trunk — but at the top, the camera jutted out from the pole connected by a small piece of pipe, looking a bit like the top of a periscope. It stayed in place for almost three months, but the latest assailant cut the unprotected pipe that connected to the camera, so it just fell to the ground. The reinforced pole remains. There was no trip to the pond.

Timing wise, it all happened late at night, and all were what we in the detective biz call “weekend specials” — including twice on Friday nights, including the most recent.

That implies planning, or maybe a week of anger brewing after a frustrating commute during the week. A picture of our suspect is starting to form. But I’m going to need professional help. I reach out to Professor Angela Book, Director of Brock University’s Forensic Psychology and Criminal Justice program.

She’s willing to entertain my theories on whodunnit��but starts with a warning.��

”Criminal profiling��does rely on evidence and research and things like that, but there is an aspect of intuition that is used, so they consider it to be partly an art form which inevitably reduces accuracy, just as an FYI,” says Book.��

”I don’t think they’ve used profiling for anything like (serial vandalism). They’ve used it for arson and sexual assaults, robbery and for more of the violent stuff, usually. I haven’t seen anything on nonviolent crimes but I would imagine the same ideas would still apply.”��

I start off with the idea, that this seems like the work of an angry man, or men. Perhaps there are women involved, but men are more prone to commit road rage and the sheer dedication to being a speed demon and violence toward an inanimate object is likely a dude.

“I would probably agree with you on that. I would also suggest that it might be a matter of people not liking being monitored. So there might be some sort of political bias there, which tends to lean more right wing,” says Book.��

My next suggestion is that the person likely lives not far from the area, possibly just above High Park. They had to drive the street a lot just to see if and when the camera is put back up.��

“As for living in the area, that’s typical. People tend to commit crimes near where they live. They don’t often go outside of their comfort zone and do it,” concurs Book.

Crimes need motive and opportunity. This one also requires some expertise. My supposition is that he’s experienced with tools, so may work in construction or the trades, and that could mean he has to drive all over the city for work, and Parkside Drive is his regular access route to and fro.

“They likely have (the tools) already, so that would makes sense,” Book says. “But I don’t know.”

She stresses these are all possibilities and could be wrong.

And at this point, there also may be more than one suspect. Due to the similarities between them, I think the first two incidents are linked, but that person might have inspired copycats. Or if there is a conspiracy involving many people, there could still be a criminal mastermind behind it all.

The Parkside camera is��once again back up. It measures how speedy people burn down the street, but the real question is how fast before it gets cut down again?��