Mark Saunders has announced he will step down as Toronto's  police chief, effective July 31. (CBC News)

Toronto’s chief of police is retiring at the end of July

Mark Saunders, Toronto’s first-ever Black police chief, has announced he is taking early retirement–at the end of July, eight months before his term was to expire next April.

His announcement came the same day Toronto city councillors Josh Matlow and Kristyn Wong-Tam submitted a motion they will present at the end of the month to cut the city’s police budget by 10 per cent.

It also comes just days after Saunders took a knee in solidarity with anti-racism demonstrators.

Toronto police chief Mark Saunders, shown in an image he posted to his public Twitter page, takes a knee with protesters at Yonge and College streets during an anti-racism demonstration reflecting anger at the police killings of black people, in Toronto last Friday. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Twitter-Mark Saunders)

Last week he told CBC News that George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis left him with a “horrible feeling” in his stomach.

Saunders said he hopes to work somewhere for the city.

“I see too many young black boys killing young black boys,” he said.

“I want to help find the cure for that disease.”

As the CBC’s Adam Carter reports, Saunders, who was appointed in April 2015, served as chief through a host of high-profile incidents and cases, including the controversies around carding, the eventual arrest of serial killer Bruce McArthur, a mass shooting in the city’s Greektown neighbourhood and the city’s deadly van attack in 2018.

Saunders underwent a kidney transplant in 2017. He said health was not a factor in his decision to retire.

With files from CBC News (Adam Carter) The Canadian Press

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