Street gangs and unprecedented acts of violence in Toronto have both contributed to a record-breaking 90 homicides in the city this year, Police Chief Mark Saunders says.
On Sunday, the city set a new record for the most homicides in a single year and speaking to CP24 on Monday morning, Saunders says there is no one explanation for the spike.
“I think this is the first time where we’ve had mass casualty attacks that neither of them had any street gang connotation to them,” Saunders said, referencing the van attack in April and the deadly Danforth shooting in July.
Ten people were killed when a man drove a rental van down a busy stretch of Yonge Street and plowed down pedestrians in his path on April 23. Months later, on July 22, two people were killed and several others were injured when a gunman walked through the city's Greektown neighbourhood and randomly opened fire on people on the street and inside crowded restaurants.
Saunders said while those outliers certainly contributed to the homicide total, he acknowledged that the rise in homicides is also due to a larger trend with gang violence.
“When you take all of the years in policing history where there has been a large surge of gun violence, a large surge of homicides, they have all correlated. The one common denominator has been street gangs in the city of Toronto,” Saunders said.
“When we look at who is causing the violence, especially the gunplay, it is street gangs.”
Saunders said there is no simple answer to address the issue of gang violence.
“We have to look at the root cause of that. We have to work in a much broader sense of what we need to do to resolve it,” Saunders noted.
“When we look at housing, when we look at education, when we look at all of these aspects and put it together and figure out it’s not just a police issue. We can’t arrest our way out of it. What do we need to do, working with government, working with private and public sector, to reach holistic solutions in order to solve the problem?”
All-time high reached after Scarborough shooting
The fatal shooting of a man in Scarborough’s West Hill neighbourhood brought the city to a record number of homicides for the year.
Shocked residents watched from their doorways as heavily armed members of Toronto police’s emergency task force swept through their Toronto Community Housing building near Kingston Road and Lawrence Avenue on Sunday afternoon.
Police say they responded to the building at around 1:30 p.m. after receiving reports of gunshots.
Once there, they discovered a man shot to death in the stairwell.
The identity and age of the victim have not been released.
Police have remained relatively tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding the incident.
Information on a possible suspect or suspects has not been provided so far.
The daylight shooting comes after what residents say is a string of deaths at the building.
Some residents told CTV News Toronto that they’re not surprised by the violence, and that things have gotten progressively worse at the building and in the area over the last few years.
“It’s getting bad,” one resident, who did not provide her name, said through tears.
“You can’t come out of your doorway, you can’t go down the stairs, there’s only one elevator… It’s awful. It’s awful.”
In the hours following the murder, Toronto Mayor John Tory released a statement, saying the apparent spike in homicides is unacceptable.
He said the city is working closely with the provincial and federal governments to toughen up gun laws and provide more support to police.
