Canadian police apologise for mocking woman with Down syndrome

  • 08/06/2017

Two Canadian police officers have been forced to offer an apology after they were caught referring to a woman with Down syndrome as "disfigured" on dashcam footage.

The comment came after the two Toronto cops pulled over 29-year-old Francie Munoz after they allegedly spotted her driving through a red light.

In footage of the incident obtained by CBC News, one of the officers can be heard telling the other that Ms Munoz is "a little disfigured".

"Disfigured, or different," he clarifies. "[Or] artistic - that's gonna be my new code word for different," he says, as the pair laugh together.

Earlier, the officer can be heard saying there was "two-and-a-half women" in the car they had pulled over, when there was actually three.

Ms Munoz learnt what the policemen had said upon deciding to fight the ticket she was issued with in court. Police told her she could access their dashcam footage - and when her mother Pamela did, she heard the slurs.

"Obviously I was extremely upset. My blood was boiling. I'm still very upset, but at that moment I was enraged," Ms Munoz told CBC.

"These are the people we've told Francie to trust, to go to when she needs help."

Toronto Police have since described the comments as "totally inappropriate", and the department's president Mike McCormack said the two would apologise and conduct sensitivity training in an effort "to make it right".

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