Was police chief blaming the victims?

Re Who is Chief Saunders blaming?, Keenan, Feb. 28 For decades, there has been a consistent and intentional effort to build bridges between our LGBTQ community and the Toronto police force. The faith community of which I am a member has played an enormous role in this bridging. Much progress has been made and, for a time, those bridges felt like they could carry and support all manner of weight.

But now, after years of flags being raised by our community and on-the-ground efforts to find a serial killer in our community, the police blame us for not doing their jobs! I have lived through this “blame the victim” world since the early ’70s, when I was the female victim of sexual assault by my family doctor. I believe, and I am overjoyed to say, that the days of blaming the victim are waning. #itsnotourfault

Chief Saunders, fix this. It’s not public relations. It’s people’s lives. Rev. Sam Morris, Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto

Re Student’s findings suggested Village killer, Feb. 28 What Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders was likely referring to was a dearth of hard information and useful tips to help crack the case. He probably was not referring to Uof T student Sasha Reid or others like her.

I’m sure there are plenty of amateur sleuths who try to pass on the results of their investigations to police.

I am also quite sure that the vast majority of such information is useless or duplicates work the police have already done.

I doubt the chief was referring to the fears of many in the gay community that there was a serial killer on the loose. The fears of many is not hard information.

Also, the fact that police could not find links between the cases reveals that they were looking for those links.

It seems to me this is just another case of people being overly sensitive. Dave Keeley, Mississauga