Toronto homicides dropped slightly in 2015
Decrease despite rise in fatal stabbings, gunfire injuries
A quick succession of shootings in December may have prompted Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti’s widely condemned suggestion that Toronto call in the army, but 2015 saw a minor decline in what Toronto police consider a top crime indicator in the city: homicides.
There were 56 homicide victims in Toronto in 2015, a small dip from 57 in both 2013 and 2014, and well below the tallies seen within the last decade of 70 or 80 slayings in a single year.
Among those killed in 2015 was a 12-year-old boy allegedly stabbed by his brother in a downtown hotel; a young man and woman shot dead near Muzik nightclub after a music festival sponsored by Toronto rapper Drake; a cancer researcher fatally stabbedin what appears to have been a robbery gone wrong; and two men shot dead during a late-night shooting in McDonald’s — a mysterious incident that resulted in no criminal charges against the unnamed security guard who shot them.
Nine homicide victims in 2015 were women — up from eight in 2014, but down from 16 in 2013. Among them was 18-year-old college student Simone Reid, whose death remains unsolved, and Precious Charbonneau, a pregnant woman who was stabbed before falling off the balcony of a Toronto highrise last week, in what police believe was a murdersuicide involving her husband.
And despite concerns about a rise in shootings this year — the number of gun-related injuries increased to 127, from 74 in 2014, and shooting occurrences are up — the number of shootings that proved fatal dipped to 26, down from 27 last year.
Fatal shootings have been declining gradually in Toronto ever since an alarming spike in 2005, when there were 80 homicides, nearly 50 of them via gunshot. The violence prompted new police initiatives aimed at combating gun crime.
Five people were killed during interactions with police in 2015. Three of those deaths were fatal shootings, including the high-profile death of mentally-ill man Andrew Loku in July. Four of the deaths are currently being probed by the Special Investigations Unit, Ontario’s civilian police watchdog (the agency cleared police in David Doucette’s February death this fall).
In an interview, the head of the Toronto police homicide unit said he remains concerned about certain types of slayings, particularly those that appear to have been unprovoked. “Randomness is a problem,” Staff Insp. Greg McLane said.
Among the most bizarre was the stabbing death of Rosemarie Junor, 28, in a downtown Shoppers Drug Mart earlier this month. Rohinie Bisesar, 40, was charged with seconddegree murder after what police called a “completely random act of violence.”
Junor’s death contributed to a minor increase in the number of stabbing deaths in 2015, totalling 17 — up from 15 fatal stabbings in 2014.
McLane also highlighted troubling instances of the accidental discharge of a weapon, including the November shooting death of Campbell Smith, 23, who police believe was accidentally shot using a legally owned shotgun. His best friend, Conor Colangelo, was charged with one count of manslaughter.
Toronto police also laid a manslaughter charge against a 13-yearold boy after the shooting death of Lecent Ross. Legal experts have speculated the 14-year-old girl was shot accidentally, though police have not publicly released details about the circumstances.
According to statistics compiled by the Star from police data and news reports, the average age of a homicide victim in 2015 was 35.
Among fatal shootings, the average age of victims was 28. That figure has been rising since 2013, when a spate of shooting deaths involving boys 16 and younger brought the average age to its lowest since 1990: 22. In 2014, the average age of a shooting victim was about 28. With files from the Toronto Star library Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.ca