‘Communities are under threat’

Activist calls out politicians for lack of resolve on gun violence,

The latest shooting that injured two girls in Scarborough angered and frustrated Louis March, but it didn’t surprise him.

The founder of Zero Gun Violence movement says some playgrounds are staying empty because parents are afraid to let their kids out and about.

“Our communities are under threat. Kids can’t have fun anymore,” he said.

He attributes the increase in gun violence partly to a lack of resolve from politicians, whose response to acts of violence is generally increasing police presence and “spending money on programs that aren’t working.”

What works, he says, is prioritizing engagement over enforcement.

March and other activists in his group have been reaching out to communities most affected by gun violence, engaging with people out of incarceration and conducting early interventions with youth.

“All the politicians saying they’ll leave no stone unturned after another shoot- ing, or simply showing up at the vigil … that is not going to solve anything,” he said.

He said many young people engage in violence as a survival mode due to lack of education and employment opportunities.

“Nobody is born with a gun in their hand,” he said. “Nobody is born saying ‘I want to be a gang member.’ We can change that.”

Community outreach programs were part of the successful Operation Ceasefire in Boston, where police teamed up with religious ministers and social activists to engage with at-risk youth and gang members.

The project, implemented between 1996 and 2000, was credited for a decline of 63 per cent among youth murders in Boston, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The model has since been replicated in other jurisdictions across the United States and Canada.

When the city of Edmonton saw an 80-per-cent increase in gun crimes in 2015, they introduced a violence-reduction strategy in collaboration with the Alberta Justice and community members. The approach was to generate a risk-based response, targeting areas previously known for gun violence, and to increase co-operation with communities among other things. In its 2017 annual policing report, the Edmonton Police showed there had been a significant decline in violent firearm incidents.

In New York state, a program named GIVE (Gun Involved Violence Elimination), which involves police co-operation with communities, was credited for a reduction of violent incidents of more than 11 per cent between 2017 and 2018.

In addition to community engagement, Toronto and other cities across the country need to establish stronger laws and regulations about gun ownership, said Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control.

The group has been pushing authorities to toughen licensing criteria, allow police access to records to trace firearms, and limit transportation of weapons.

“Gun violence is like cancer; there’s no one solution,” she said. “It required a multilayered strategy.”