Grim record
With 90th murder, 2018 is year to forget for Toronto homicide squad
They range in age from a 3-week old baby to a 94-year-old woman.
Their alleged killers include family members, strangers, youth as young as 13, and some perpetrators who are still unknown.
Together, their deaths mark a grim record for the city. With Sunday’s fatal shooting, Toronto has hit 90 homicides in 2018, with six weeks left in the year.
The tally surpasses the previous record of 89 homicides, set in 1991.
The violence has prompted an outcry from community groups and activists, citing an urgent need for services and resources to address the root causes of crime.
A surge in shootings, in particular, made community safety a top issue in last month’s municipal election and prompted a move to send 200 additional officers into the streets this summer.
During Toronto’s infamous “Year of the Gun” in 2005, the city saw 80 homicides, 53 of which were fatal shootings. So far this year there have been 47 fatal shootings, one fewer gun death than there had been by this date in 2005.
Criminologists and sociologists warn against drawing conclusions from a single year of data, saying crime ebbs and flows and trends should be observed over longer periods of time.
Fixed numbers, like homicide counts, do not account for multiple factors that can influence homicide numbers, says Jooyoung Lee, associate professor of sociology, at the University of Toronto, whose research includes policing and gun crime.
“They don’t take into account that a city like Toronto is changing over time and the population is exploding,” Lee said.
A more reliable figure is the homicide rate, which factors in population. In 1991, the previous record-breaking year, there were 3.8 killings per 100,000, the highest in city records.
The long-term average in Toronto has hovered around 2.4 homicides per 100,000, though it has risen to three in recent years, including during the Year of the Gun.
So far this year, the rate sits at approximately 3.5 per 100,000.
Lee also noted the year’s homicide total will undoubtedly break from historic numbers by the “atypical” mass casualties caused during April’s Yonge Street van attack, when driver Alek Minassian allegedly mounted the curb, striking pedestrians as the van moved along a twokilometre stretch.
Acting Insp. Hank Idsinga, who heads the Toronto police homicide squad,and his unit have had an exceptionally busy year, both due to the sheer number of homicides and a string of high-profile and resource-intensive cases.
In January 2018, police arrested alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur, a sweeping probe that has included the largest forensic investigation in the service’s history. McArthur is charged in the deaths of eight men between 2010 and 2017. Then came the Yonge Street van attack, followed by a surge this summer in gunfire. In July, two men were gunned down on Queen Street near Peter Street, during the early evening of a busy Canada Day long weekend.
The following month, an 18year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl were killed when gunman Faisal Hussain opened fire along Danforth Avenue on a warm Sunday evening. He exchanged gunfire with officers before shooting himself.
Despite the heavy workload, the homicide unit is “responding well and getting the job done,” Idsinga said. He cites a solve rate that has stayed around 70 per cent. There are more homicides where he is confident an arrest is coming in the near future. But given the workload, police will eventually have “to take a real serious look at how the manpower and the structure in this office is working,” Idsinga said.
“We can keep going at this pace and respond to the homicides, but the people who are doing the work are eventually not going to be able to keep that pace up anymore,” he said.
Currently, the unit consists of six teams — each comprising two detective sergeants and a crew of detectives — which take on every sixth murder.
“The fact that this is a recordbreaking year in some respects should give everyone collectively pause to think about how we can prevent this from becoming the new normal,” said Lee.