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Topic: Gun Violence (Read 324 times)

Colleen
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Gun Violence
« on: Dec 31^st, 2005, 11:03am »

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I was out at a friends place talking about Toronto (a city 4 hrs south from where I am, and where my sisters and other family live). The topic of conversation was the shootings in Toronto on Boxing day that killed one teenage girl shopping with her parents on Young street (one of the busiest spots in Toronto, especially on Boxing day). I have family that lives not far from this area and I have really become fearful for there lives. The guns have gotten out of control. If its not a young girl dieing then its kids going to other kids funerals to kill eachother, read on it explains. One thing that really gets me and that is not only happening in Toronto or in Canada is the cut backs on the police. They are around but not in high volumes anymore, and lot of times you see just one police officer per car, I think they should be paired up for there safety. I dont know but I am just not starting to feel safe anymore. My city is small and seems safe enough but for how long?

TORONTO (CP) - For a city already struggling with a peak in gun murders, the shooting death of a teenage girl in downtown Toronto on Monday in front of panicky shoppers punctuated a year that police and politicians already said broke new frontiers in the audacity of firearm violence.

The eruption of gunfire that left a 15-year-old dead, six wounded and hundreds of Boxing Day bargain-hunters ducking for cover served as a grim reminder of the increasing brazenness of handgun shootings in the past 12 months.

"What's particularly horrifying about this is where it occurred - in one of the highest traffic areas on one of the highest traffic shopping days of the year, and I think everybody, myself included, recognizes it could've been one of us," said Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control and a criminal justice professor at Ryerson University in Toronto.

"It certainly created a level of fear and concern that we haven't seen before. I think that's probably what sets this incident apart from any of the others is how vulnerable it makes a very large part of the population feel."

Toronto has experienced the highest tally of gun-related homicides of any Canadian municipality - 52 people this year are dead after the pulling of a trigger.

But it's the bold nature of the killings that concerns Cukier.

"We've seen more shootings in public places, we've seen more gang-related shootings, we've seen more shootings where bystanders are victims and we've seen more shootings where the police don't have leads," Cukier said.

"It's the kind of violence that has increased people's fear levels and anxiety levels to a point that we've probably not seen before, because it seems anybody could be a victim."

In a city where killings can be relegated to the inside sections of the daily newspapers - yet with a reputation of being one of the safest on the continent - the Boxing Day shootout may have eclipsed another infamous incident that a month ago was considered a defining moment in what has been a bloody and violent year.

On Nov. 18, Amon Beckles was gunned down outside the sanctuary of a church. He was attending the funeral of a friend whose shooting death he may have witnessed a week earlier.

On the front steps of a house of God, the life of the 18-year-old was snuffed out prematurely.

When contrasted against a decade's worth of statistics on gun murders nationwide, Toronto's peak appears to be an aberration. There were 271 homicides committed across the country with a firearm 15 years ago. In 2004, there were 172.

The drop in homicides comes a decade after Canada passed laws that required gun owners to be licensed and registered.

But numbers and laws provide cold comfort to families of gun victims, and can't convey what beat officers are telling their staff sergeants - that more and more, handgun shootings are occurring out in the open, thereby increasingly putting public safety at risk.

The death of Beckles, whom police said was "a potential material witness" to the gun slaying of 17-year-old Jamal Hemmings, rattled the city of nearly three million, hardened homicide investigators and galvanized politicians and pastors alike through its sheer audacity.

"This is a wake-up call," Rev. Don Meredith told mourners at Amon's funeral.

On the campaign trail, Prime Minister Paul Martin has pledged a ban on handguns, saying the rise in gun violence is "not the Canada we imagine."

The Boxing Day shooting was tragic, made only more so during the holiday season, Martin said Tuesday.

"What we saw . . . is a stark reminder of the challenge that governments, police forces and communities face to ensure that Canadian cities do not descend into the kind of rampant gun violence we have seen elsewhere," he said in a statement.

While there has been a loud call to stop the flow of illegal weapons - most of them handguns from the United States - experts say trying to eradicate the gun trade is futile.

"It would take an army and a police state to crack down and to capture more than a tip of the iceberg of firearms coming through the border,"

Tom Gabor, a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa, said earlier this month.

The Criminal Code currently provides minimum four-year sentences for using guns to commit certain offences, such as attempted murder and robbery.

But there have been several instances this year where people have been charged with killing someone with the pull of a trigger days after being let out on bail for gun offences.

Therein lies part of the problem, says Cukier of the Coalition for Gun Control.

She advocates for a long-term, integrated approach that would include a visible presence of officers in communities where guns are a problem, a strong show of partnership between police, religious and community leaders, and a restoration of social and recreational programs lost due to provincial and federal cutbacks 10 years ago.

Evidence that strategy works lies in a northeast neighbourhood of Toronto. The Malvern area has been beset for years by shootings but is now on the mend after a big police sweep netted dozens of men high within the ranks of the Malvern Crew and the Galloway Boys, two notorious gangs.

"It's as if we suddenly had a surge in the number of cases of cancer," she said.

"Yes, of course you need intervention to treat them, but you have to ask yourself the question: where did this come from? What were the factors that contributed? And violence is no different."

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AmberJ
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Re: Gun Violence
« Reply #1 on: Dec 31^st, 2005, 12:45pm »

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that shooting was so sad!!! I mean Jane was out on Yonge Street at the Eaton Centre, something people from TO and even tourists do on a daily basis Sad

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Colleen
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Re: Gun Violence
« Reply #2 on: Dec 31^st, 2005, 4:46pm »

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Another article about the shootings.

Slain teen a top student, athlete

East-end resident yet to be named
Up to 15 youths in confrontation
Dec. 28, 2005. 05:28 AM
NAOMI CARNIOL AND BETSY POWELL
STAFF REPORTERS

While police detectives picked up dozens of bullet fragments and cartridge cases, shoppers returned to Yonge St. yesterday.

Less than 24 hours earlier, the stretch of Yonge between Gould and Gerrard Sts. was a scene of chaos as a shootout claimed the life of a 15-year-old girl and left six other people wounded.

Four of the victims were male, including a 41-year-old off-duty police officer, and three were female.

At a police briefing yesterday, Det. Sgt. Savas Kyriacou of the homicide squad said the shooting started after a confrontation between two groups of young men on the sidewalk outside the Foot Locker on Yonge St. at 5:19 p.m. Hundreds of Boxing Day shoppers were in the area at the time.

Between 10 and 15 people were involved in the confrontation, all of them in their late teens and early 20s, Kyriacou said.

The seven victims were hit by stray bullets when the two groups opened fire, said Kyriacou, adding: "We're treating all seven people as innocent bystanders until our investigation proves otherwise."

Police said the girl who was killed was an athlete and an excellent student who lived in the Danforth and Coxwell Aves. area. Her name was not released.

Two men were arrested at Castle Frank subway station shortly after the shootings and a gun was seized. Police were still trying to determine if the men were connected to the shootings, Kyriacou said. No one had been charged as of last night.

Police were also trying to acquire security videos from nearby stores along Yonge St. to see if they captured the incident, Kyriacou said.

At the scene of the crime yesterday, detectives marked bullet fragments and cartridge cases with more than 65 yellow evidence cards while bargain shoppers returned to Yonge St. in large numbers.

Some shoppers said they were shocked by Monday evening's violence, but that didn't stop them from hitting the stores.

"I came out today because I figured the crowds wouldn't be as big as usual," Hamilton resident Matt Trabucco, 20, said, holding two shopping bags. He said he felt safe because of the heavy police presence.

But it wasn't as busy as expected given Boxing Week sales, said an employee of Future Shop. The store's main entrance was within the yellow tape designating a police crime scene.

While staff used signs to direct customers into Future Shop through a back door off an alley, general manager Jaffer Hussain said sales for yesterday and Monday were down.

The shootings made headlines around the world yesterday as CNN, NBC and the BBC broadcast the story.

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Colleen
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Re: Gun Violence
« Reply #3 on: Jan 2^nd, 2006, 10:03am »

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Gunfire's first victim of 2006

Man, 21, found dead in front seat of car in west end
Slaying linkedto gangs and drug trade, Miller says
Jan. 2, 2006. 07:18 AM
HAROLD LEVY
STAFF REPORTER

A 21-year-old man found slumped in the front seat of a car in a convenience store parking lot early yesterday morning is Toronto's first homicide victim of 2006 dead of apparent gunshot wounds.

Police found the body of Dillan Yhanike Anderson in a Cadillac parked near a dumpster loaded with garbage, a bullet hole visible through the front windshield.

Anderson's slaying follows a record year of death by gunfire here 52 of Toronto's 78 homicides in 2005 were the result of gun violence, more than double the 24 gun-related deaths in 2004.

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