‘Kim’s Convenience’ Actor Calls Out Cop’s ‘Go Back to Your Country’ Comment
A Kim’s Convenience actor took to Twitter this weekend after he said he witnessed a Toronto police officer yell a racist comment. Andrew Phung, who plays Kimchee in the CBC sitcom, said he overheard a cop remark, “If you can’t drive, go back to your country!” at an intersection, the Toronto Star reports.
“I literally just witnessed a @TorontoPolice officer shout ‘go back to your country’ because they were confused at the crosswalk,” Andrew Phung tweeted on July 7, “To which two white dudes then shouted ‘amen, go back to where you fucking came from.’ THIS IS NOT MY CANADA!”
In a follow-up tweet, Phung clarified that a driver seemed “confused” at a chaotic intersection when the alleged incident occurred. Phung said it began when an SUV pulled up to the intersection and the driver, who he said was a person of colour, seemed flustered about their next move, the Globe and Mail reports. According to Phung, the officer shouted, “Go, go, it’s your turn.” When the vehicle cleared the intersection, the cop then allegedly responded with the comment, Phung said.
Phung said on Twitter that he sent an email to Toronto Police Service about the incident. In another tweet, he said he took a photo of the cop in question that he intended to share with the police service if it followed up.
Phung had dropped off his family at the Rogers Centre and was going to a Blue Jays game when he witnessed the alleged incident, according to the Toronto Star. He was waiting at a crosswalk at Lake Shore Boulevard West and Rees Street at the time with about 20 other people. Other witnesses groaned in response to the incident, according to Phung. He said he responded to the cop’s alleged comment by saying “not cool.”
But, Phung alleges that two other bystanders responded to him by saying, “No, totally cool. If you can’t drive go back to your fucking country.”
On Saturday, Toronto Police Service spokesperson Mark Pugash said they had “spent the evening gathering information so we can investigate what happened.”
“I think as a whole we can all agree that we’ve all been confused before in Toronto traffic,” Phung told CBC News.
“It was just so disappointing to see this coming from a police officer,” he said. “They’re the moral backbone of our community, they uphold the law. So when you see a police officer doing that, it empowered two other people to join in on that racism.”
Sign up for the VICE Canada Newsletter to get the best of VICE Canada delivered to your inbox.