(ATR) Organizers of the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games are not commenting after police revealed on Feb. 24 that a tunnel had been built near the tennis venue.
The Toronto Police Service officer in charge of Games security, however, downplayed the Jan. 14 discovery by a conservation officer who found a mound of dirt and a wooden lid concealing the 33-foot-long, wood-reinforced tunnel.
Deputy Chief Mark Saunders appealed for public help at a Feb. 24 news conference. He said, however, that there is no suggestion of criminal intent or threat to the July 10-26 Games.
"I can tell you point blank, with all of our venues, we have a very robust security mechanism in place. This thing would have been an eyesore to us," Saunders told a Toronto news conference. "We would’ve located this. So I wasn’t overly concerned about ‘oh my goodness, this is going to be something horrific.’ We’ve got steps and measures in place to ensure that this type of thing or this type of threat if someone is going to be nefarious in this type of way, we’ll be on top of it."
The tunnel was dug near the fenceline of Rexall Centre, the York University campus’s 12,500-seat tennis stadium that hosts the annual Rogers Cup ATP and WTA tournaments.
Saunders said a gas-powered generator and supplies were found in the tunnel, along with a rosary and Remembrance Day poppy. Police eventually filled in the tunnel, 82 feet west of Rexall Centre.
"We’re unable to determine who constructed this chamber, nor can we determine what the motive was for building it," Saunders said.
Saunders said police waited more than a month to go public because they felt there was no urgency.
It is not the first time a big Games security force in Canada had to deal with a tunnel, but it is closer to both the Games and a venue.
In 2005, five years before the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, Canadian and U.S. security and border officials dealt with a 360-foot tunnel dug under the border from rural Surrey, British Columbia to a house in Lynden, Washington by drug traffickers.
Written by Bob Mackin
Homepage photo: Toronto Police Service
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