Rob Ford, the mayor of Canada's largest city, has been caught on videotape staggering around an unknown living room ranting gibberish and gesticulating wildly. "I'm gonna kill that f--king guy. I'm telling you, it's first-degree murder," Mayor Rob Ford rages as someone in the room secretly uses a cellular phone to film the chief magistrate's addled tirade. Moments after the Star published the video online, Ford emerged from his office and apologized. "The Toronto Star just released a video that I was very, very inebriated." "All I can say is, again, I've made mistakes. I just wanted to come out and tell you I saw a video. It's extremely embarrassing. The whole world's going to see it. You know what? I don't have a problem with that." "I hope none of you have ever or will ever be in that state. Obviously, I was extremely, extremely inebriated." The target of the mayor's anger in the video is not in the room and is not known to the Star. "I'll rip his f--king throat out. I'll poke his eyes out . . . . I'll make sure that motherf--ker's dead," Ford says, then hitches up his pant legs as if bracing for action. His ire appears to be directed at someone who has called him, and brothers Doug and Randy, "liars, thieves." The Star purchased the video from a source who filmed it from someone else's computer. The person with the computer was there in the room, the Star was told. Wednesday, Ford's chief of staff Earl Provost said he could not speak to the Star about the video. "I am sorry I cannot talk to you about this," Provost said. Also on Wednesday, the Star sent a transcript of the video, a description of the video's contents and an offer to show it to the following people in the mayor's circle: Ford, his brother Councillor Doug Ford, Provost, deputy chief of staff Sunny Petrujkic, spokesman Amin Massoudi, and to Ford's lawyer Dennis Morris. The Star invited all of them to view the video, either at their office or the Star's office, and provide an explanation for Ford's behaviour. None of them took the Star up on its offer as of Thursday. Last week, Police Chief Bill Blair announced that investigators recovered two video clips relevant to extortion charges laid against the mayor's "close friend" Alexander "Sandro" Lisi. One of those videos is of the mayor smoking what appears to be crack, which two Star reporters viewed in May. There is no suggestion that this video is the second video Blair referred to in his press conference.

• published: 07 Nov 2013
• views: 301