The 6ix is not your friend
It happened. As of today, there are 200 additional police officers patrolling the streets between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. until the end of the summer. The initiative is part of a $15-million “gun violence reduction plan” implemented by Mayor John Tory.
It is yet another tough on crime response, an effort to crack down on perpetrators of gun violence or, as Tory called them, “anti-social sewer rats.” While Tory advocates for police expansion, Stacey King, the Toronto mother whose daughters were shot while in a playground, says the city needs to address the root causes of gun violence. One of these positions is consistent with recommendations by researchers on youth violence, the other is not.
The 2008 McMurtry-Curling Roots of Youth Violence report highlighted nine issues critical to addressing youth violence: poverty, racism, community design, issues in the education system, family issues, health issues, lack of a youth voice, barriers to economic opportunities, and issues in the justice system. Ten years after the publication of this report, few steps have been taken to redress these problems. It is also worth noting that the 2008 report was part of a lineage of reports, commissions and task forces dating back to the 1970s that have arrived at similar conclusions.
Despite the evidence that policing is not the answer, Tory and Premier Doug Ford have championed police expansion. Last month, Ford tweeted “Toronto is home to the greatest police officers. We need to make sure they have the resources to round up these criminals, build relationships in communities, and prevent these shootings.”
Last week, newly appointed Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Michael Tibollo appeared in Toronto’s Jane-Finch community wearing a bulletproof vest. He later commented, “I went out to Jane and Finch, put on a bulletproof vest and spent 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock in the morning visiting sites that had previously had bullet-ridden people killed in the middle of the night.”
The optics of this debate are clear: while some people and places deserve compassion and humanity, Black people and Black communities are not among them. Instead, we are cast as dangerous, kept at arm’s length, and used to justify increased policing.
The media has propagated this narrative, rehashing the well-worn “summer of the gun” trope and accompanying mug shots for over a decade. “T.O. Feared Heading For New ‘Summer of The Gun’ ” exclaimed a CityNews headline from 2008; “Bracing for summer of the Gun 2,” the Ottawa Sun warned in 2012. A 2016 CP24 article affirmed “Too soon to tell if this year will repeat 2005 ‘Summer of the Gun’ ” while, two weeks ago, the Star’s Rosie DiManno cautioned “It’s the Year of the Gun redux.”
Police expansion (see TAVIS, see school resource officers) is routinely deployed without community consultation or consideration of its disproportionate negative impacts on marginalized communities.
McMurtry and Curling affirm the impact that police can have on youth, writing “when youth are singled out for attention because of their race and treated with a lack of civility, they can become alienated, lose self-esteem and feel that they have less hope or opportunity in this society.”
Yet, too often, conversations about “public” safety ignore the safety of Black and brown people, a safety imperiled by police expansion and ineffective police oversight.
Recently, Tory announced funds for social programs and it appears he may finally be listening to Black communities. While this is a step in the right direction, the funding for these programs is much less than the funds allotted for police-expansion priorities.
Additionally, despite intense criticism, Tory refuses to recant his “sewer rat” comment. Similarly, Tibollo, has doubled down on his most recent remarks.
Toronto loves to lay claim to Blackness through music, food and festivals (Drake, DeMar, Caribana, roti, etc.) but does not actually love Black people. The framing of gun violence as public safety issue but not policing as such, speaks to this. If we are, in fact, in midst of the “Year of the Gun redux,” it is less a reflection of violent crime than our unwillingness to address anti-Black racism. Black people: The 6ix is not your friend.