black-based 'gangsta culture'
Wed, December 28, 2005
Metropolis' innocence lost long ago
By LICIA CORBELLA
According to a high-ranking Toronto police officer, the city in which he toils "lost its innocence" on Boxing Day.
The comment would be funny were it not in reference to such a tragic and sickening event.
Apparently as many as 15 young people exchanged gunfire on a crowded Yonge Street -- one of the busiest shopping areas in all of Canada on any day, never mind Boxing Day.
One 15-year-old girl was killed and six others were injured during the Hollywood-style shootout. All were innocent bystanders. No rival gang members were shot or killed.
Now, I don't know what planet Det.-Sgt. Savas Kyriacou has been hiding on, but to say Toronto lost its innocence because of this is like saying an 80-year-old whore lost her innocence because she serviced a customer over the Christmas holidays.
There have been 78 murders in Toronto in 2005 and a record 52 of them were caused by gunfire. In Calgary, five shootouts have led to murders -- though luckily only gang members and not innocent bystanders were the victims.
But in 2005, in Toronto, people have been shot and killed at a funeral, on a crowded bus, on Yonge Strett, not far from where Monday's shooting took place and in front of a day-care centre just this past Friday.
In Calgary, shootouts have occurred at crowded shopping centres and in busy nightclubs.
Recently, Calgary Police Chief Jack Beaton told the Sun editorial board Canada's lax laws are part of the problem.
Since July 25, Calgary police arrested 51 gang members. Guess how many remain behind bars? Just three.
As he said, when you consider most gang members arrested for running a $750,000 marijuana grow operation will be sentenced to exactly zero time behind bars, gangs will thrive. You don't need to be a chief of police or a criminologist to figure that out.
I did my fair share of time on the police desk at the Toronto Sun, including in 1991 when a record 88 murders took place, mostly between black youths. It was a problem then and it's a a problem now. Little has changed. That's because politicians and, apparently the police, tiptoe around the problem.
Prime Minister Paul Martin did more tiptoeing yesterday.
"I think, more than anything else, (the shootings) demonstrate what are, in fact, the consequences of exclusion."
What nonsense. There is no city on this planet that is better at inclusion than Toronto. Toronto is, by its very nature, the world rolled into one metropolis of three-million people.
Virtually every nation in the world is represented there, and most newcomers acclimatize and become productive and vital contributors to Canada within a short period of time.
Their children, like the children of immigrants clear across this country, are accepted and offered the same opportunities and access to education as any other Canadian.
Yesterday, I called the Toronto police. I thought I got media relations, but reached a different department instead. I mentioned that all I wanted to know was whether the handguns used in the Boxing Day shootings were legal and registered.
The person on the end of the line snorted and said: "I'd bet my first born that it wasn't."
Not an official comment to be sure. Instead, Det.-Sgt. Kyriacou said: "I don't believe that these people were in possession legally, so we're going to continue our investigation as to how they came about possessing a handgun."
Meanwhile, Martin's "answer" to this tragedy is to continue to talk about "banning handguns", which are virtually banned in this country anyway. Murder is banned -- always has been -- and yet it goes on. Surely, someone willing to shoot into a crowd of innocent people won't hand over his weapon because the PM says so.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper has the only real answer to this kind of thuggery -- and that is to bring in mandatory minimum sentences for the use of guns in a crime.
"There is nothing else you can do to deal with crime other than make sure people who commit crimes are severely dealt with and we don't run a revolving-door justice system."
Bang on. In reality, it's our lawmakers -- our politicians -- who lost their innocence on this file a long time ago.