Toronto police board meeting to happen today under threat of protest over teen's beating

Toronto's police board is set to discuss cruiser design and modernization plans, but its Thursday meeting could be disrupted by a large protest over the beating of a GTA teenager.

Desmond Cole, the journalist-activist who was kicked out of the last police board meeting for demonstrating against how the police board was handling the Dafonte Miller case, has made a public call for people to attend the meeting at Toronto police headquarters on College Street.

• Waterloo Police to investigate handling of Dafonte Miller case

• 'It was not a cover-up': Police chief faces mounting questions over Miller case

"I am not asking you to do or say anything at this meeting, I am simply asking you to show up in peace and in solidarity with Dafonte," Cole wrote in a Facebook post that's been shared more than 700 times.

Miller, 19, suffered a broken nose, jaw and wrist and is awaiting surgery to remove an eye that was injured in December2016, allegedly at the hands of an off-duty Toronto police officer and his brother.

Const. Michael Theriault has been charged with aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and public mischief in connection with the case. Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, a police watchdog, has also charged Theriault's brother, Christian Theriault, who is not a police officer.

Waterloo Regional Police have been called in to probe how Toronto police handled the situation.

The board isn't expected to discuss the Miller case in any formal capacity.

Police cruiser debate back in spotlight

Chief Mark Saunders will, however, answer any questions the police board has about new design for Toronto police cruisers. The new look unveiled this week features a change to the design that was criticized as being too stealthy last year. The cruisers are still grey, but now have white doors.

• Toronto Police want you to notice them in their new cruisers

Saunders will also provide an update on the force's modernization efforts, and ask the board to approve $80,000 in funding to allow Ryerson University to study its School Resource Officer program which some have condemned and others want to keep.

• Police presence in Toronto schools up in the air as board awaits study results

Meanwhile, former mayor John Sewell is expected to speak to the board about a Toronto Star report that found prior to 2014, per capita, police arrested three times as many black people as white people for marijuana possession.

"There is no reason to believe that what occurred before 2014 is still not occurring,"Sewell wrote to the board in a letter ahead of the meeting.

The board will also get a summary of the inquest into the death of Andrew Loku, a mentally ill man shot dead by Toronto police officers in 2015, from city solicitor Wendy Walberg.

• Advocates want Loku inquest recommendations in place fast

The inquest deemed Loku's death a homicide, although the police officers involved were cleared of wrongdoing, and issued 39 recommendations to prevent a similar tragedy.

The meeting is set to begin at 1 p.m.