Toronto shooting 9 shot (health care, money, teachers)
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Toronto is starting to resemble Chicago. Although it is probably Detroit that influences Toronto most because of the relatively short distance. The americanization of Toronto is very concerning.
Oooh, some 'Semi' heads are gonna 'splode over that post!
What's your problem? You seem all worked up about insulting everyone.
One man with a gun shot 14 people. Two died. After gunfire exchange with police, the shooter fled and was found deceased a short time later. Those are the facts.
I just consider myself blunt and direct and you are just sensitive. None of this information was released last night. If you are insulted o well. It’s a message I got absolutely no problem conducting myself like this in real life and have on numerous occasions. Even been contacted by high people on high Places because of what I am capable of. Matter of fact this is me toned down. I’d probably make yo cry in real life if you can’t take an lol because I find it funny the media refuses to call a white man a terrorist. But you are most likely white yourself so you are blind to see how this works out In your favour.
I would just ignore the rudeness on this thread and send my condolences. Sad that this sort of thing is happening and I hope things don't get as out of control as they are here in the USA. It will probably turn out to be a one off but it does concern me that Canada might possibly become a violent place just like some parts of the USA.
Why, I'm being told 1 in 5 people own a firearm in Canada. I do like how they are not announcing anything about the shooter. Maybe the local news agencies will learn something.
Toronto is starting to resemble Chicago. Although it is probably Detroit that influences Toronto most because of the relatively short distance. The americanization of Toronto is very concerning.
I just consider myself blunt and direct and you are just sensitive. None of this information was released last night. If you are insulted o well. It’s a message I got absolutely no problem conducting myself like this in real life and have on numerous occasions. Even been contacted by high people on high Places because of what I am capable of. Matter of fact this is me toned down. I’d probably make yo cry in real life if you can’t take an lol because I find it funny the media refuses to call a white man a terrorist. But you are most likely white yourself so you are blind to see how this works out In your favour.
I had a pretty interesting conversation about this topic with 2 strangers today in a coffee shop.
I mentioned I was 1/2 a sleep still as I stayed up trying to find out info on the Danforth incident.
I mentioned shocked especially as the area is not known for problems.
One lady mentioned that this was something you woukd expect to hear happening I Jane and Finch.
Another lasy entered the conversation saying hey this guy at least not black as we tend to get blame for everything
My comment surprised both if them....
"I am from a Caribbean background. I grew up around Jane and Finch and lived in the area for 26 years. I have never seen a gun... seen anyine get shot, been a victim of a shooting or any violent crime. So I can't understand why people think that. I have also been to Caribana mist years and NEVER had or encountered a problem".
I think as members of certain communities when we hear of crime the first thing we think is please don't be a black or Muslim person because we have enough negative stigmas already".
As a person from an Caribbean/ Arab heritage with a multiracial amd faith family that grew up around Jane and Finch I feel like I have to spend way too much time dispelling myths about all these topics. Then I have to explain why I look "white" as people don't says tgese things as freely in front of you if they think you are a member of the community being discussed.
I think members of communities often say .... well it is a white guy ...so now it is not a big deal? Are white males now going to be profiles and stigmatized like us? Has yet to happen. This this the 3 biggest incidences have involved white males McArthur ( serial killer), the guy driving the van in to people and now this?
Race does and does not matter all at the same time.
Just sharing this open ended thought.
Now I am hearing the shooter was 17? WTF
Can't even buy cigarettes or alcohol ...how did he get a gun? I hope this wrong.
I don't know or understand what happend.
All I do know is I love my city during the goid ... bad and ugly too.
Shooter was know to cops. Don't expect them to reveal the identity soon. Need to white wash his social media posts.
I figured that is why they were holding out before everyone mass searched the shooter and got to their contacts before them. The most scary part is the randomness.
Happy to be alive and hoping I don't know any of the victims.
The killing of anyone is horrible. The killing if of a child like this in our city ......unspeakable. My greatest fear as a parent is watching someone harm my child and not being able to do anything about it. There is no justice for this crime. It is just a huge loss.
First of all, I am deeply saddened by what happened on the Danforth last night. I lived a stone's throw away from the Danforth for years and it is like a second home to me. I was just there, by Chester station, on Saturday night. Having two of these kinds of attacks on innocent civilians by deranged individuals in just a few months is very troubling. My heart goes out to the victims and their families.
These random acts of violence perpetrated against innocent people are despicable and very scary. No where is immune, and I don't know why Toronto has had two of these events in such a short time. But I also know that these incidents are still exceedingly rare here. I also womder what can be done to prevent people from acting on their murderous impulses. As we saw with the rampage on Yonge Street, guns are not needed to inflict terrible violence on people.
That said...the discussions about spikes in shootings in Toronto this year seems to be a separate issue. To lump it in with violent rampages committed by angry and unhinged killers like the SOB who murdered civilians with a truck on Yonge Street or the individual responsible for last night's slaughter is unhelpful and seems tendentious.
Toronto occasionally has spasms of gun violence related almost entirely to criminal gangs, and most shootings occur in a few neighbourhoods where these gangs are in close contact. It is terrible that this happens, the solution(s) is/are complex and, as a result, no one seems to be interested in it — investing in education, creating better job opportunities for young people, better alternatives to gangs, more community resources, more jobs, more family cohesion, less glamorizing of the gangster life in pop culture, a complete and total end to the War on Drugs, etc. It's easier to hire a few hundred more cops to make low-level arrests and bring back carding, even though that will have little or no effect. People like quick and easy solutions, even when the problems are complex and multi-faceted. It's easy to demonize a teenage gangster, but much harder to tackle the social conditions that create him.
What shocks me is the sensationism by some on this forum. Toronto is probably the safest city of its size in the Amercias and while its recent surge in shootings and gang violence is worrisome, we've been here before and it does not represent some slide towards St. Louis North. As someone who has taught in the neighbourhoods where much of the gang violence is concentrated, I've seen the causes and know the solution has nothing to do with more cops, tougher gun control (as a legal gun owner myself, I know how well-regulated and reasonable Canada's gun laws are, and these murders are being committed largely with illegal weapons that are smuggled from the US by gangs. Making the laws stricter will have no impact on gun violence), bringing back carding, or silly tough-on-crime legislation and policing.
We have to accept that in a large city like Toronto where the poor are being priced out of their old neighbourhoods and becoming increasingly concentrated and ghettoized in remote parts of the city, there is going to be tension and violence in those areas as residents from other neighbourhoods move in. Toronto is becoming more and more unequal, with the Old City now populated almost entirely by the well-off, and sections of the Inner Suburbs populated with the poorest residents of the city. This continuing concentration of poverty and dysfunction is a big part of the problem as Toronto becomes more and more expensive every year. The marginalized are pushed out of once-diverse Toronto neighbourhoods into pockets of deprivation, and the criminal element fights over scraps with the new arrivals. The same thing happened in Chicago when the projects were demolished in the late-90's and early-aughts and tens of thousands of the city's poorest residents moved to other poor and marginalized areas. The criminal element from the pj's continued their activities in neighbourhoods where different gangs were operating. It was a recipe for disaster, and it's no different here.
But all of that aside, there is a spike in shootings and violence in Toronto every 5-10 years and every time people wring their hands and fret that the city is becoming dangerous, and worry that it will soon have murder rates rivaling Detroit's. It never happens, and it's not going to happen this time either. The vast majority of this violence can be traced back to a few gangs operating in a few neighbourhoods. Police will take them down and the violence will ebb. For a while. Because in those same neighbourhoods, kids who are now 9 or 10 have been watching their older brothers and cousins gangbang; have taken note of the popularization of urban violence and thuggery in music and media - its celebration and glamorization. When they hit 14 or 15 in neighbourhoods where there is really nothing for them, these kids will form the next generation of gangsters and the cycle of violence will repeat. If we really want to stop it, we can invest in communities instead of police. We can end the War on Drugs. We can spend more on schools and community centres, diversify out economy and create more opportunities for young people to make an honest living. We can make Toronto a more affordable city and stop allowing pockets of poverty to grow and fester.
This is my opinion, but it is supplrted by almost twenty years of studying violent crime in this city. I am very concerned about the incident on Yonge St and on the Danforth last night. Mass shootings/killings have been oroven to have a a viral effect, leading to a cascade of copycats. I worry it could happen again. As for the gang violence, I also worry about that because as long as it's happening in places like Mount Dennis or Shoreham or Jamestown, no one really cares. When people start getting shot in the downtown over gang beefs, then everyone gets upset. Remember Jane Creba and the Year of the Gun? Murder rates plunged in the years following that one, but even when they creeped back up, no one seemed to care when the violence was going on in Scarborough, North York, Rexdale. But some people get murdered downtown and suddenly everyone is freaking out (I'm not referring to the two mass-killing incidents of this year). For most, as long as the gangsters stay in their neighbourhoods and do their dirt there, everything is fine. But that isn't how things work.
Instead of fretting that Toronto is becoming Detroit, maybe more people can look at the bigger picture and lobby their representatives to invest in the communities where the violence is concentrated.
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