If we stop being shocked by incidents like this, we’re sunk,
“All of us, as a community, are shocked and alarmed,” said Det.-Sgt. Terry Browne. “And we should be.”
So say us all. How could we be anything else?
The Danforth is our other main street, one of the outstretched arms of our subway. Most of us know its charms on a beautiful summer evening: you’ve got souvlaki on sidewalk patios and dining rooms that open onto the street; you’ve got your pick of amazing pubs for a beer or aged scotch or rowdy conversation; you’ve got cafes and live bands and full-on destination dessert places.
And then suddenly, on this warm Sunday, you had a 29-year-old man walking down the street and opening fire with a handgun into a restaurant window. Walking along some more, apparently calmly reloading, before turning and firing into another restaurant. And another. A deranged homicidal version of a Sunday-night stroll, turning an urban paradise into a nightmare, and a massive crime scene.
A10-year-old girl, dead. An 18-yearold woman, dead. Thirteen other victims, aged 10 to 59, hospitalized and treated for gunshot wounds. Countless others traumatized. An entire city once again wounded.
This has been a year of violent trauma for Toronto.
In April, the rampaging van attack that killed 10 and injured 16 more pedestrians on Yonge St. In June, the shooting at a playground near McCowan and Alton Towers circle that saw two sisters, aged 5 and 9, shot.
Now this shooting rampage on the Danforth, motives unknown, results known all too well. It doesn’t get any easier. Not even after years. We experience these spikes in horrifying violence every now and again. We went through the Summer of the Gun in 2005. We went through two public shootings that claimed innocent bystanders in just over a month, in 2012, at the Eaton Centre and on Danzig St.
In each case, and still, we are shocked and alarmed. Each time the wound feels just as deep. We feel, each time, as if this strange horror can’t have happened here, in our home. We remain horrified. And, as Det.-Sgt. Browne said, we should be.
“We should be.” Yes. Thank god we are.
There are no silver linings to violent death like this. The pain is not lessened one iota by any bit of contextualizing or reassurance. Yet if, in our view of the larger picture, there is anything to temper how horror like this, pain like this, a year like this, might change how we think of ourselves or this place we live, it is tied up in the truth that these events still shock us.
Partly because it means that they are still relatively rare. In most U.S. cities, mass shootings and gun murders in general are far more common than they are here. In most other Canadian cities, crime rates and murder rates are higher than they are here.
That’s little solace, of course. That the problem is much worse elsewhere doesn’t bring back a 10-year-old girl who was killed. It doesn’t bring back the other victims of crime killed this year. It doesn’t heal the wounds of the injured.
Fifty-eight people have been killed this year in Toronto, which is 58 too many. There have been 228 shootings in Toronto this year, which is 228 too many.
Which is another reason why we should want to remain shocked by the occurrences, by the numbers, by the pain. If we reach a point where we find these things mundane — if we stop being shocked by them — then we’re sunk. Because if we still find it shocking, perhaps we can still be jolted into doing something to stop it from happening again.
Some of the actions we might take are direct and obvious, if not easy: what gun murderers have in common is that they managed to get access to guns — access we need to make more difficult than it is. Some of the steps are less obvious, and also not easy: whether we’re talking about gang members or radicalized terrorists or misogynist mass killers, we are usually looking at a young man who has developed a thirst for violent vengeance and a callous disregard for human life. Whatever we can do to prevent boys from turning into such men — better mental health care, more access to educational and career options, better mentorship, more anger management support — we should do.
And finally, if we still feel shock alongside the pain, maybe it’s because we still feel like this kind of violence does not fit our experience of this city, our image of ourselves. For every killer who takes lives, we learn of many more people who care for or shelter victims. Alongside some undeniable instances of hatred, there are lots of stories of everyday and extraordinary kindness. There are moments — sometimes it feels like whole seasons — of pain, but many more moments of joy.
None of us can deny this violence is part of the city, but it is not all of it. It does not define us.
And we should allow our shock to jolt us into acting to ensure it never does.