Chief Bill Blair faces conflicting accusations of siding with, against Mayor Rob Ford

Depending on which side you fall on, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair either let Mayor Rob Ford off the hook by botching a drug investigation or took such personal delight in chasing the mayor that he deserves to be fired.

There’s also the possibility that Blair, who Ford himself has previously held up as an ethical figurehead, led a sound investigation into a drug ring with apparent ties to Ford and let the chips fall where they may. But professional competency doesn’t make headlines.

Fresh off a groundbreaking Thursday press conference in which Blair announced that police had recovered a deleted copy of a Rob Ford video that had previously been reported by the press, questions abound about whether enough was done to coral Ford in an investigation that left his friend and occasional driver Alexander Lisi charged with trafficking drugs and extortion, in an alleged attempt to recover the video.

The Superior Court released hundreds of pages of documents from the investigation on Thursday that chronicled some 100 meetings between Ford and Lisi, often held in bizarre places or under odd circumstances, and during which police often spotted packages being exchanged.

[ Related: Did Ford call a radio show claiming to be ‘Ian from Etobicoke’? ]

The Canadian Press reports that renowned lawyer Clayton Ruby has accused the police of giving a deliberate pass to Ford on his alleged drug use and ties to the underworld.

"The police have either ignored or overlooked all the evidence against Ford," Ruby told the news agency. "I've never seen such a botched investigation, and I've seen thousands."

Based on the released documents, Ruby argued that officers who witnessed suspicious "hand-to-hand" transactions would have been in their legal right to stop Ford's car and search him.

Ruby represented a private citizen in an ultimately unsuccessful legal bid to have Ford removed from office last year. A police spokesman told the Canadian Press that Ruby's fresh complaint was a publicity tactic.

Other the other end of the spectrum, however, is a complaint not made for publicity but for political survival. Dennis Morris, Ford's lawyer, told the Toronto Sun that Blair was grandstanding when he announced the existence of the controversial video.

“The mayor has been convicted in the public by the police chief,” Morris told the newspaper, adding that Blair's announcement was "over the top."

During Blair's public statement, he confirmed Ford was in a video that had been recovered by police, and that the video was "consistent" with what had been reported in the press. The Toronto Star and Gawker had reported that the video showed Ford smoking from what appeared to be a crack pipe.

Coun. Doug Ford called in to AM640 to defend his brother and also called for Blair to release the video. “Obviously, he says on one hand he can't comment on evidence, and then on the other hand, he wants to comment on it. So if that's not a little bit of politicking on the chief's part, I don't know what is,” said Doug Ford, per the Star.

Of course, neither Ford considered it politicking when Blair took the unusual step of reviewing a 911 dispatch tape last year, in which Rob Ford was alleged to have called dispatchers "bitches." They weren't offended when Blair publicly stated that he sided with Ford's version of events. They also likely didn't mind when Blair elected to leave Ford's name out of the investigation until Thursday, after a court unsealed police documents that mentioned Ford many, many times.

There is a possibility that Blair has handled the case as effectively as possible, that he neither delighted in nor avoided holding Ford’s feet to the fire. That he is correct in handing the video over to Crown lawyers and letting them handle the ball from here.

Sadly, that possibility isn’t likely to engage the armchair quarterbacks.

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