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Toronto proves adept at curbing gun violence
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...y/National/home
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TIMOTHY APPLEBY AND UNNATI GANDHI
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
ORONTO — The explosion of gun violence that convulsed Toronto last year, as the rest of the country looked on aghast, appears to have been checked by an aggressive package of police tactics that was three years in the making.
After a small army of officers descended on the tough-as-nails Jamestown housing project in the city's northwest corner in May, scooping up scores of alleged gang members and associates, Police Chief Bill Blair warned that there could be no cure-all to the plague of shootings that killed a record 58 people under intense media glare in 2005.
Six months later, he remains wary about waving victory flags.
“There is no simple, quick fix,” Chief Blair said yesterday. “There are social, cultural, economic and demographic conditions that give rise to this violence, and I can't undo those things.”
Maybe not. But something seems to be working
As of Thursday, police were aware of 176 shooting incidents this year citywide, compared with 218 in the same 10-month period in 2005, a decline of more than 19 per cent.
In that same time frame, 236 people were wounded by firearms, a 21-per-cent drop from the 2005 figure of 300.
More guns were taken off the streets, too: 2,048 in 2006, versus 1,927 at the same time last year, a 6-per-cent increase.
But the most dramatic tilt is in the gun-homicide tally.
When 23-year-old Michael Linton died of his injuries yesterday morning, a week after he was shot in the downtown club district, the year's homicide total rose to 59, compared with 65 on Nov. 3, 2005.
And among those 59 homicides, death came from the barrel of a gun just 25 times, compared with the 45 times recorded by this time last year — a 44-per-cent reduction.
Moreover, the homicide squad's clearance rate — denoting an arrest or compelling evidence pointing to a suspect — is on an upswing.
Accompanying last year's 78 homicides, 52 of which involved guns, was a dismal 53-per-cent clearance rate, compared with 86 per cent in 1993. In 2006, the rate stands at 63 per cent.
*snip* |
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| quote: | Originally posted by chinamon
not true. i say "ugh"
but i am a tranny. |
| quote: | Originally posted by kotsy
lol colour me retarded |
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