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Gun culture
Dec. 20, 2001
The deadly scourge of guns on city streets hit painfully close to home this week for the Toronto police force.
Constable Antonio Macias, 32, was shot Monday night outside an apartment building on Weston Rd. in the west end. The wound was serious but thankfully, Macias, the father of two young children, is expected to recover.
The shooting was a troubling reminder of the dangers our police officers face day in and day out.
Even more troubling is the description of the person suspected of shooting the officer — a teenager.
Mayor Mel Lastman spoke for many when he called the shooting "an affront to everything that's decent about this city."
Truth is, though, youths with guns have been a deadly combination this year in Toronto.
On Saturday night, 20-year-old Mohamoud Ahmed was standing on a downtown street corner when a car pulled up, several young men jumped out and shot him. Five days earlier, David Bryan, 29, was gunned down in Scarborough.
The two men are just the latest in a grim tally of death and injuries that have shattered neighbourhoods and destroyed young lives.
In all, there have been 59 murders in Toronto this year, 32 of them involving guns. Police have made arrests in fewer than 30 of the homicides.
Toronto's black community, which has been especially hit hard by the shootings, issued a call to action earlier this year to solve not just the murders but the social and economic problems at the root of this violence.
To its credit, the police force was working on a strategy to get guns off the streets. But the attacks of Sept. 11 forced a new focus on the force and the strategy went on the back burner.
Chief Julian Fantino, who rushed back to Toronto Tuesday from an anti-terrorism conference in the United States, admits that the emphasis on terrorism after Sept. 11 sidetracked the force from other priorities.
Now guns are the priority. Getting the force's gun strategy off the drawing boards and into action has taken on a new urgency. Fantino has promised to unveil several new initiatives very shortly.
And the city, which ignored the concerns of the black community, cannot turn a blind eye any longer.
For all the talk of recent weeks, it isn't terrorists who are the greatest threat to this city. It is young people and their guns. It will take the combined efforts of politicians, educators, community activists and residents themselves to halt this epidemic of shootings.
Copyright 1996-2001. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited.
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