{"id":885920,"date":"2026-09-06T20:32:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T20:32:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/885920\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T20:32:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T20:32:15","slug":"toronto-father-speaks-after-kids-manhandled-in-mcdonalds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/885920\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto father speaks after kids ‘manhandled’ in McDonald\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Toronto father is speaking out after video surfaced showing his 15-year-old twins being arrested and \u201cmanhandled\u201d by plainclothes police officers at a Scarborough McDonald\u2019s last week. <\/p>\n

In a statement to CP24 on Saturday, Toronto police say they are \u201caware of the video and have forwarded it to Professional Standards for investigation.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have any further information to provide at this time,\u201d spokesperson Stephanie Sayer said. <\/p>\n

Brian Galindo, the father of the twins, says his children had gone to the McDonald\u2019s located at Victoria Park Avenue and Ellesmere Road on Sept. 3, after their phones had died.<\/p>\n

He said his children told him two people approached them and began pushing them without clearly identifying themselves as police.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were thinking stranger danger,\u201d he told CP24 on Sunday. \u201cThey don\u2019t know. They were just there to charge their phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"TPS Toronto police investigating after video surfaced showing 15-year-old twins being arrested and \u201cmanhandled\u201d by plainclothes police officers at a Scarborough McDonald\u2019s on Thursday Sept. 3, 2026 (Screenshot from video). What the video shows<\/p>\n

The video, which has been circulating online, shows a plainclothes officer striking the girl in the face and later pushing her inside the restaurant.<\/p>\n

The officer is then seen grabbing the boy after he appears to strike the officer. Both teenagers are eventually handcuffed.<\/p>\n

Galindo said his son reacted after seeing his sister struck.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter got slapped by the cop. Obviously my son\u2019s going to react because that\u2019s his sister,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re twins. Boy and girl twins.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the teenagers would not have fought back if they had known they were dealing with police to begin with. <\/p>\n

\"\"TPS <\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t identify themselves,\u201d Galindo said. \u201cObviously they\u2019re not going to go swing at a police officer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police sources later told CP24 that officers were called there for a robbery investigation. <\/p>\n

Sources then added that officers went to look at security camera footage and then spoke to the youths hanging out at the restaurant, which resulted in an interaction.<\/p>\n

Once uniformed officers arrived, both teenagers were arrested for assaulting a peace officer, according to the sources. <\/p>\n

No charges were ultimately laid, and the teenagers were released and taken home to their parents.<\/p>\n

Father says children were injured<\/p>\n

Galindo said his daughter was experiencing jaw pain and had a cut under her chin after the incident. He also said her glasses were broken during the altercation.<\/p>\n

\"\"Bryan Galindo GLASSES Toronto police investigating after video surfaced showing 15-year-old twins being arrested and \u201cmanhandled\u201d by plainclothes police officers at a Scarborough McDonald\u2019s on Thursday Sept. 3, 2026 (Bryan Galindo photo). <\/p>\n

\u201cWe just came from the hospital yesterday,\u201d he said. \u201cMy daughter\u2019s jaw hurts… she\u2019s fragile. She\u2019s like only 100-something pounds, and the officer manhandled her, and my son too,\u201d Galindo said.<\/p>\n

Police have not provided additional information about their investigation, but Galindo said he is considering taking legal action immediately following the long weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want justice,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is not fair and it\u2019s not right for them to get manhandled like that. They\u2019re only teenagers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galindo said he believes the officers could have handled the situation differently and insists his children had nothing to do with the robbery investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were just at the wrong place at the wrong time,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

With files from CP24\u2019s Bryann Aguilar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Toronto father is speaking out after video surfaced showing his 15-year-old twins being arrested and \u201cmanhandled\u201d by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[712,49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-885920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}