Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is back at it again: drinking, cussing and imitating a Jamaican accent, as two new videos have emerged on YouTube that show the mayor, well, being the mayor.
In one video titled "New Video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Drunk, Swearing in Jamaican Patois? Bumbaclot," the mayor is shown in a fast-food restaurant slurring his words, rambling about police surveillance and calling police chief Bill Blair a derogatory name, the Associated Press reports.
Ford, who acknowledged last year that he smoked crack after police obtained a copy of tape that they said showed him smoking crack, swore off drinking in November 2013. Ford claimed that he only smoked crack after "one of my drunken stupors." Outside his office Tuesday, the mayor acknowledged to AP that he drank Monday night and said that it was him on the video. When asked if he also did drugs, Ford said no.
"I was with some friends, and what I do in my personal life with my personal friends, that's up to me," Ford said. "It really has nothing to do with you guys."
On the recording, Ford can be heard using a faux-Jamaican accent.
"Chase me around for five months. Leave me alone, and then try and tell me, we're counter-surveilling the guy. He's hiding here, I'm hiding here. Oh, we don't know?" he says before rambling incoherently, AP reports.
Ford told AP that he didn't think the accent was derogatory or offensive.
"It's how I speak with some of my friends," he said.
A second video appears to show Ford sitting with his friends inside the same restaurant. According to AP one of the men at the table is former driver Alexander Lisi. Lisi faces trial on drug and extortion charges after police started an investigation into the mayor. It was not immediately clear if the second video was also shot Monday night.
Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly, who assumed some of the mayor's powers after the city council stripped Ford of many of his duties year, urged Ford to seek professional help.
"He's got to do a lot of soul-searching in the next few days," Kelly said.
Ford claimed in November that after a "come to Jesus moment" he was done with drinking. Pictures emerged last week of Ford leaving a nightclub. He snapped at reporters and denied he was drinking, AP reports.
Ford vowed in November that the public would never see a tape of him intoxicated again. He not only refused to step down when the scandal broke about him smoking crack, but he put his name on the ballot to run for another term earlier this month.
"Is that the mayor speaking Jamaican? Wow," City Councilor Michael Thompson, who is black, said after reporters showed him the tape. "I'm numb."
Thompson said the mayor's "supposedly being Jamaican" was offensive. He called it a sad day and said the mayor needs to seek help.
"We've been fairly silent in just waiting for the next thing to occur," Thompson said. "I think we all had sort of concluded it was only a matter of time."
Read more at Associated Press.