Durham officer who investigated tow truck industry faces police misconduct allegations, civil suits
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A detective tasked with investigating the GTA “tow truck wars” is embroiled in allegations of misconduct and bias toward certain operators.
Det. Const. Jon Hood, a 28-year veteran of the Durham Regional Police Service (DRPS), is facing at least 34 professional misconduct charges and has been named in two civil lawsuits seeking more than $12 million, according to police and court documents obtained by the Star.
The allegations, which have not been tested in the tribunal or court, date back to 2021, the same year Hood joined the Ontario towing task force.
Claims outlined in court documents involve investigations into longtime GTA tow operator Mano Subramaniam, named in two of the four filings. In unrelated incidents, the filings allege Hood and DRPS unlawfully seized dozens of cars from a Brampton auto body shop and exerted “improper influence” over the bidding process for DRPS’ towing contracts.
Hood, who’s spent the past six years probing Durham’s towing sector, calls the allegations one-sided. When reached by the Star, the detective, on leave since April, said he wasn’t authorized by the service to speak to the claims. Hood’s lawyer, Sandy Khehra, said his client looks forward to explaining his actions in court.
The allegations offer a glimpse into an industry that has long been prone to violence, vulnerable to corruption and resistant to enforcement. Since the beginning of 2024, at least two homicides in Toronto have been identified as towing-related, and in January alone, at least eight shootings were linked to the industry.
It was this kind of “brazen violence,” often at the hands of bad actors trying to “gain control of a very lucrative market,” that Hood only ever sought to curb, says his lawyer.
“What I can tell you,” Khehra said, “is that all of Hood’s actions were to protect the lives of certain individuals caught in the middle of this war.”
“Hood (was) never motivated by any personal gain, but the protection and preservation of life which he has sworn to up keep for the last 28 years.”
Durham police declined to comment on any of the allegations.
Upheaval in GTA towing
After two years investigating the towing industry as a front-line officer with Durham police, Hood was offered a spot on the newly established joint-operation provincial towing task force in 2021.
It was the same year the Ford government enforced sweeping new rules to curb violence and corruption in the industry. The legislation, still in effect, included carving the GTA’s 400-series highways into four distinct zones where only police-contracted companies could operate.
The announcement came in the wake of four homicides and dozens of fire bombings linked to towing in the years prior and less than a week after two veteran OPP members were charged as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations of corruption in the industry.
The changes include a “tow zone” pilot to assign specific towing firms monopolies over four
Hood earned praise for his efforts that year, particularly in relation to a seizure of more than 50 vehicles from a Brampton auto body shop in June that saw two people and two companies charged.
At the time, the service said the vehicles had been illegally stored, commending Hood for a “tremendous” impact on the towing industry.
Years later, however, the same seizure is now the subject of a $1.8-million civil lawsuit. Filed on behalf of Peel Preferred Collision and naming DRPS and Hood as defendants, it claims Hood failed to show proof of the proper warrants when seizing the vehicles.
While the charges laid in connection with the raid were dropped by the end of 2021, the claim says the seized property, including the plaintiff’s electronic devices, were never returned.
It appears a statement of defence has not been filed in the case. Lawyers for the plaintiffs did not respond to the Star’s request for comment, while Hood and DRPS declined to speak to the allegations.
‘A costly investigation’
The same year, another civil filing alleges, Hood made misrepresentations to provincial officials about GTA tow operator Mano Subramaniam, derailing the efforts of Subramaniam’s wife, Yalini Manoharan, to open a chain of cannabis retailers.
According to the lawsuit, seeking more than $10 million in damages, Hood was tapped in January by officials with the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) looking for information that might link Manoharan to organized crime. He did so, the claim alleges, by telling the AGCO that Manoharan’s husband was “deeply involved in organized crime” and “fraudulent” towing operations, without corroborating evidence.
The statements spurred a “a costly, yearlong investigation,” it states, culminating in the refusal of Manoharan’s license.
She challenged the process, and Hood admitted to a lack of evidence to actively link the businesswoman or her husband to illicit dealings in a subsequent hearing.
The tribunal ruled in Manoharan’s favour in June 2022, but by that time, she says, the launch had been delayed by more than a year, costing her millions in rent payments.
The lawsuit, brought by high-profile Toronto lawyer Marie Henein, alleges the defendants “intended to injure (Manoharan’s) economic interests” and used “unlawful means” to do so.
Ian Gold, counsel for Hood and DRPS, filed a Notice of Intent to Defend against the action last summer. Neither Henein nor Gold commented on the ongoing lawsuit.
Misconduct charges levied by DRPS
A year later, Hood is again accused of misconduct — this time resulting in charges laid, and subsequently dropped, against Manoharan’s husband, Subramaniam.
According to documents issued by DRPS, Hood helped initiate a Durham police investigation into Subramaniam in August 2023. Then, hours before his arrest, attempted to halt it. The service says Hood was later found to have withheld information from fellow detectives and Crown officials in the case, causing it to collapse.
According to Hood, it was a necessary move to protect a confidential informant.
But the series of events outlined in the documents offer only a glimpse into the situation, as he has refused to reveal the identity of his informant and the wider circumstances prompting his actions.
What is known is that in August 2023, Hood received a number of reports from a local tow operator, out of the country at the time, claiming he’d been threatened by Subramaniam.
Within days, Hood organized a police detail from Pearson airport to Durham police’s 18 Division to escort the operator to an interview. According to Hood’s notes, the operator detailed a number of threats from Subramaniam — including that his house would be burned down “with him in it.”
Detectives with Durham police’s Project Duality, established to investigate towing-related arsons in the region, began to investigate the alleged threats. Assigned to the provincial task force at the time, Hood was not initially involved.
About two months later, Duality investigators began looping in the OPP-led team and, in turn, Hood on weekly updates for the case. While he would later claim he wasn’t aware of the plan to arrest Subramaniam, Durham investigators say Hood provided them with interview transcripts and further evidence in the case.
At the end of October, Subramaniam was arrested, charged with uttering threats, and released on bail.
Within the week, Duality investigators informed Hood of their intention to lay a further charge of extortion. Just days before the second arrest, however, and for reasons that remain unclear, Hood began to express “reservations” about the case. Twice over the next two days, he attempted to delay the arrest, citing a potential risk to a confidential informant.
On Dec. 1, Durham police went forward with the arrest, charging Subramaniam for a second time.
In an email sent to the Crown days later, Hood criticized the officers in charge, claiming they’d lacked grounds to lay the charges and denied the August interview had not been organized over threats, but rather because the operator had indicated a willingness “to help stop the constant violence in the industry.”
The operator who reported the threats, Hood told the Crown in his email, had “clearly” stated from the outset he hadn’t wanted police to pursue charges against Subramaniam.
The Durham Regional Police Service maintains its officers had sufficient grounds for the arrest, suggesting some had been established by Hood himself. In the interview with the tow operator, Durham police said, he’d made repeated notes of the alleged threats without any mention of the operator not wanting officers to pursue charges.
The service accuses Hood of “minimalizing” the threats after the fact in his email to the Crown.
“It was clear at the time, (the operator) had contacted Hood to report threats, (not) to help stop the constant violence,’” DRPS wrote in the misconduct documents. “Rather, he was looking for police assistance.”
In an interview with a Durham police investigator, Crown Attorney Greg O’Driscoll would also later express displeasure with Hood bringing his office into an “internal dispute,” claiming the detective’s actions had damaged the reputation of Durham service with his office.
In February 2024, all charges against Subramaniam were dropped after Crown attorneys were unable to determine what circumstances, if any, posed a risk to Hood’s informant, and, in turn, what evidence could be disclosed in court.
The Star was unable to reach Subramaniam for comment.
In a statement given to Durham investigators months later, Hood maintained he’d had no knowledge of the plan to arrest Subramaniam and continued to criticize Duality investigators for their decision to arrest him.
It wasn’t until he was formally interviewed in May that he admitted he’d misled colleagues and made a number of inaccurate statements in the investigation, claiming he’d done so unintentionally due to a lack of understanding of the case.
When asked why he hadn’t informed his colleagues earlier that the operator had not wanted police to lay charges, Hood said it “wasn’t his job to babysit (the officer in charge).”
In both his March statement and May interview, Hood declined to reveal the circumstances around his confidential informant or the risk posed by Subramaniam’s arrest.
When reached for comment, Khehra said Hood looks forward to recounting his side of the events to the tribunal.
“In these types of investigations, police need assistance (from) the public and honest members of the tow truck industry; however, these individuals are afraid for their and their family’s safety,” Khehra said. “As such, certain privileges are awarded.”
A misconduct hearing has not yet been scheduled.

T Dot Auto Collision, owned by Yalini Manoharan. In 2021, Hood is alleged to have told AGCO officials that Manoharan’s husband, Mano Subramaniam, was “deeply involved” in organized crime.
Court asked to review DRPS tow contract
The most recent filing, detailing allegations of “improper influence” exerted by Hood, surfaced in a court application seeking to overturn the 2023 bidding process for the Durham Regional Police Service towing contracts filed at the Oshawa courthouse last summer.
According to the application filed on behalf of Jim’s Towing owner Randhir Solomon, Hood “influenced” the process, despite not being authorized to oversee fleet contracts, which led Durham police refusing to renew Jim’s contract after more than 40 years of “an unbroken succession of towing contracts.”
New to the towing industry, Solomon acquired Jim’s in December 2021, taking over full operations about six months later after the death of longtime owner Bob Hackney.
In late 2023, Jim’s Towing began to field an “unusual and unwarranted degree of attention” from Hood. Often, unexpected visits from the officer would turn into disputes over enforcement, Solomon wrote in his affidavit. The interactions were unusual, he says, as Hood was not a member of DRPS’ Fleet Services, responsible for managing its contract.
Solomon retained lawyer Oleg Roslak, who wrote a letter to DRPS demanding evidence of non-compliance and asking for clarification on Hood’s “authority and involvement” in the contract.

16 trucks on the Jim’s Towing lot were set on fire last year, seven of which suffered significant damage.
Court exhibit
About two weeks later, “with no particulars or reasons as to why,” a request for proposals was posted by DRPS, seeking new bids for its contracts. Unable to dispute the decision, Solomon re-entered the process but was ultimately unsuccessful.
Instead, the contract was awarded to another operator who, according to the application, had a much smaller fleet, was listing rates nearly double that of Jim’s, and was believed to be operated by a “friend” of Hood’s.
According to Roslak, the events raise “serious concerns of corruption with the process, (…) none of which have been properly answered by the DRPS.”
The week after Solomon lost his bid, fencing on Jim’s property was slashed. Nine days later, 16 trucks on the lot went up in flames. The incidents, the documents state, were the first of their kind in the company’s more than 40 years.
DRPS has filed a motion to quash Solomon’s application, along with a request to shield its officers affidavits from the public record. The service did not respond to the Star’s request for comment.
Hood maintained he is not authorized to speak to the claims, but looks forward to giving his account to the court.
A judge is set to rule on the police service’s request to overturn the application in February. A specific date has not yet been set.
With files from Peter Edwards