Action urged at rally on shootings
Governments should take quick, decisive action to combat the gang and gunfire violence that is taking over sections of Toronto’s neighbourhoods, faith leaders told a news conference yesterday.
Rev. Al Bowen, pastor to the family of 18-year-old Amon Beckles — fatally shot Friday — told the rally “our kids will keep dying” until community leaders at all levels take action.
Speaking outside the Toronto West Seventh-day Adventist Church, where Beckles was gunned down Friday while attending the funeral of Jamal Hemmings, 17, Bowen was clear on what needs to be done.
“ It’s beyond words what’s been happening to our city,” Bowen said, calling on those with the reins of power — police, politicians, business leaders — to take action.
Drastic action, if necessary. “There has to be not just a reaction, there has to be a comprehensive quick movement, such as what ( then- prime minister Pierre) Trudeau did with the War Measures Act during the FLQ crisis of 1970,” he said. That controversial action suspended certain civil liberties because of the threat posed by violent separatists in Quebec. A similar urgency exists now, Bowen suggested. Other faith leaders at the rally pledged yesterday to work with each other — and the broader community — to find ways to end the violence.
“We’re here to send a message today that this gun violence in the city has got to stop,” said Rev. Don Meredith, chair of the GTA Faith Alliance and one of the organizers of the event. One speaker repeated the call for stiffer penalties for crimes involving gangs and guns. There was no argument from police that it was important for people to come forward. “We need that code of silence, that wall, to be broken down,” said Supt. Ron Taverner, in charge of 23 Division, which covers most of northwest Etobicoke, where Friday’s shooting occurred. “The police can’t do it alone,” he said.
“It’s a small minority of people that are involved in these things (shootings), we know that. And it’s having such a devastating effect on the whole community. It’s craziness.”
Just ask Pastor Andrew King, who was officiating at the funeral where Friday’s murder took place. “I’m sick and tired of the picture that’s portrayed of our young black men. They’re not evil, they’re not wicked people. They’re good children. What we need to do is find ways to help them, find ways to give them hope.” The same message was repeated at churches in many neighbourhoods yesterday.
Rev. Gary Hibbert, lay minister of the Dominion World Outreach Ministries, told his flock that education and opportunity play key roles in bringing young black males into the mainstream.
“ These young men, they don’t need our pity, they don’t need our rage,” Hibbert told the congregation, meeting at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School near Warden and Victoria Park Aves. “What they need is for us to empower them to prosper and to succeed,” Hibbert said. “We’ve got to get them back to school . . . the odds are against you, big time, if you don’t have a post-secondary education. “You must be educated.”