City records 59th homicide of ’05
41 gun killings this year surpass number in any other year Latest victim, part of triple fatal shooting, dies yesterday
The summer of the gun has become the year of the gun. Even though it is only September, Toronto has already recorded more fatal shootings in 2005 than in any other year. That number includes a rare triple fatal shooting after one of three people hit by a barrage of bullets on Friday died yesterday. Of the 59 homicides so far this year, 41 have involved a firearm. That easily surpasses the previous high of gun killings set in 1991, when 35 of the city’s 88 slayings were gun- related. Perhaps encouragingly, the number of firearm slayings plummeted the following year to five out of 60 homicides.
Last year, 27 of the 64 homicides were shootings.
Police believe gang violence is behind much of the unprecedented amount of bloodshed tied to guns.
Just last Friday, four people were gunned down in two separate attacks that police say appeared to be related to drug dealing, not gangs. A survivor from Friday night’s shooting on Tandridge Cres., Shane James, 26, died yesterday afternoon at Sunnybrook hospital. He had been fighting for his life since the incident outside an apartment building near Albion and Weston Rds., at about 9: 20 p. m.
Joseph Santos, 25, and Donald Rawluck, 24, were pronounced dead at the scene. Early Friday morning, Rondell Calliste, 20, was shot to death in a parkette in Parkdale. Police think he had been lured there for a drug deal.
There have been no arrests in the cases — and many of this year’s firearm slayings remain unsolved. There have also been scores of non-fatal shootings this year where criminal charges have not been laid. With so many gunmen walking the streets, Staff Insp. Jeff McGuire, head of the homicide squad, said the obvious implication is there is a greater availability of handguns — the preferred firearm of choice for Toronto killers. He also pointed to lenient bail and sentencing by the courts for people accused and convicted of gun crimes.
“ There doesn’t seem to be a strong deterrent factor that’s making these people afraid to carry guns,” he said yesterday. “ They’re not afraid to carry guns and when they make bail, they go out and get another gun.”
Police say revenge, mixed with drug trafficking, is at the root of most of the shootings by gang members.
Toronto police are hoping they can reverse the tide of deadly gunfire by redeploying officers into troubled neighbourhoods and by targeting individual gangs. They did that last week with Project Flicker, a law- enforcement crackdown that rounded up several dozen suspects police say belong to a Rexdale gang.
At city hall yesterday, Mayor David Miller said he wants to expand to seven the number of low- income, high- crime neighbourhoods covered under the city’s community safety plan.
Miller will today ask the policy and finance committee to add Lawrence Heights, Eglinton East and Steeles to a list of neighbourhoods that includes Malvern, Jamestown, JaneFinch and Kingston Galloway.