Rash of gunfire feels too familiar
Police were investigating one shooting and spotted another.
There, captured on security camera video, was a 15-year-old boy, struck in the abdomen, but (according to a CTV interview) still able to stagger to his mother, screaming: “Mommy!”
It was just before 8 p.m., a week ago Monday, and the youth had been with his younger sister, who wasn’t hurt. The siblings had ducked into the doorway of a townhouse unit on Jamestown Cres. after a vehicle had begun to turn the corner. The front passenger and back side passenger climbed up and out of the windows, leaning across the car’s roof to start blasting away.
Only when investigators combed through video did they realize that, just a minute earlier, three occupants of that same vehicle had got out of the car and chased another teenager down a nearby pathway. Two of them fired but missed.
That teen has not come forward. He barely escaped with his life but hasn’t turned to police even though, presumably, he’s still in somebody’s crosshairs.
“We didn’t receive even one call of gunshots from anybody in the area,” says Supt. Ron Taverner, unit commander of 23 Division. “The kid who was shot at didn’t contact us.”
Earlier, on that same day, a 15-yearold boy was walking through the parking lot at Yorkgate Mall when a dark-red four-door car pulled up alongside. The driver got out and chased the teen, shooting at him on the run. One bullet hit its target and the youth was rushed to hospital with a life-threatening injury.
Young men in cars, firearms in hand, witnesses scarce or uncooperative.
And that, in a nutshell, speaks to the investigative difficulties of cops trying to solve gun crimes in Toronto. The bang-bang is either too common an occurrence for residents in particularly traumatized neighbourhoods or, more likely, everyone has bought into the don’ttell culture of urban violence. Only the mothers of the dead plead for co-operation.
Don’t-see, either, for the vast ma- jority of people in this city who go about their lives unaffected by the gun ravage in certain communities with crime so minimally reported these days in mainstream media, unless the incident is especially disturbing — a pregnant woman in the back of a car, hit by bullets — or the victim is one of us — an innocent bystander, white, middle-class, a good citizen, a daughter, a dad, fatefully intersecting with havoc.
“They’re getting younger all the time,” Taverner notes wearily, “the victims and the people we’re arresting. Fifteen years old!’’
Cold numbers indicate that shootings and homicides are actually down slightly. Toronto police statistics as of Feb. 13 show 44 shooting incidents in 2017, compared to 46 for the same period in 2016; deaths: seven in Toronto for ’17, eight for ’16. But all seven homicides this year have resulted from gunfire. Injuries: 13 for 2017, 24 for 2016.
More bullets flying, more dangerous scenarios. Eventually, at this pace, the kill-column will catch up. Just as a bullet meant for somebody else caught up with 61-year-old grandmother last summer, slain when visiting her grandkids in River Town, what police suspect was a gang-related shooting. In November, just up the street from that location, a 24-year-old male was shot to death in the bedroom of his townhouse. Also in November, 17-year-old Caheem “Clayshawn” Ramsuchit, was felled by bullets in a brazen daylight targeted attack in the backyard of a house in the Jane and Steeles area, Toronto’s 60th homicide on the year.
Last month, 18-year-old Ali Rizeig, shot and killed outside his Regent Park townhouse.
What is going on? Because this rash of gunfire killings feels awfully familiar, evoking the notorious Year of the Gun in 2005 when the streets erupted in gang-on-gang mayhem. Six fatal shootings in the past 11 months.
And the weapons, they’re getting ever-more powerful, in the hands of the erratic and the hit-or-miss.
“We’ve seized shotguns, rifles, .45 calibre handguns, an Uzi last week,” says Taverner.
The Uzi was allegedly fired by a 25-year-old man from the apartment entrance of a building in the area of Finch and Don Mills and thrown off the balcony when police broke down the door. Two 9-yearold girls had been playing in the hallway when the Uzi was discharged. The accused has been charged with four counts of attempted murder.
“Almost 40 per cent of the shootings have been in the northwest corner of the city,” notes Taverner, referring to areas covered by 23 and 31 Divisions. “It’s the proliferation of guns and the firepower, the same thing I’ve said a hundred times before. We’ve created special teams to deal with it and redeployed uniforms from other areas.”
There have been media reports about a renewed gang-on-gang violence, possibly involving the long-time Sick Thugz, which have traditionally operated in Regent Park, and a new splinter group, Halal. But Insp. Peter Moreira, commanding officer of the integrated guns and gangs task force, resists any characterization of pattern or trends. “I don’t know if it indicates much of anything,” he told the Star on Friday, referring to the surge of shootings and the purported intragang violence. “This is just what happens with people who lead an at-risk lifestyle.’’
Moreira deliberately avoids associating any known gang to a specific Toronto location, which he believes unfairly taints the community and pumps up gang notoriety. “There’s nothing ‘glamorous’ about it. I cringe even when you mention up-ticks or down-ticks in violence. Every investigation is looked at individually. There are so many different reasons behind shootings — it could be about the underlying lifestyle or jealousy over a girl. It’s almost impossible to talk about it in generalities.”
A couple of weeks ago, Moreira called a press conference to show media nine firearms and high capacity magazines recovered as part of a firearms investigation, resulting in the arrests of three individuals.
What he says now: “Up-tick, downtick. If you’re involved in this lifestyle, it will continue to spiral out of control.”
A bunch of guns off the street, sadly, will make only a small dent.
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