WARMINGTON: A mystery in Toronto's tent city
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Something happened in Toronto’s unofficial “autonomous zone,” but so far, we don’t know exactly what.
We will just call this the “mystery in tent city!”
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There was a crime last Friday inside George Hislop Park — greenspace on Charles St., near Yonge St., which has been taken over by inhabitants of a tent city. But finding out exactly what happened has been a challenge.
“My understanding (is) two homeless people got into a physical altercation and one pulled out a knife and stabbed the other,” said a resident who lives next to this lawless encampment — one of several that have popped up downtown during the pandemic.
Toronto Police are not confirming this. Or denying it. Translation: It’s under investigation.
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What police did reveal on Friday, “there was an assault,” but nobody had died.
The undisclosed incident happened just a couple of hours after I saw something peculiar on the top of the city parking garage across the street from the park.
A man dressed in black — carrying something that may have been a can of spray paint — scaled a service ladder to get on top of the parking garage.
He looked down over the tent city for a few seconds before making his back to the ground where he picked up his knapsack and took off. There’s no indication it was related to the incident that happened later.
Whatever this all turns out to be, it won’t be the first time police have come to this blight on downtown Toronto since it popped up in the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown.
People have been charged for drug offences and there have been investigations into complaints from neighbours who say they’re being harassed and are feeling intimidated.
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The tent city is said to be in result of homeless people fearing they could be exposed to COVID-19 inside shelters. But it’s also an out-of-control area with many other health concerns and risks at play.
Neighbours are upset and frightened about what’s happening.
“I was actually threatened two days ago by someone in the park who said they were going to stab me,” said one area resident.
The neighbours have a second meeting planned for Wednesday but it seems their concerns are falling on deaf ears at City Hall.
“It’s disgusting what we are having to live through,” said one neighbour.
I’m hoping this column will prompt someone to come forward and reveal what happened on Friday to the public.
“Someone is going to get hurt and then they (the city) will have to act but it will be too late then,” said a neighbour.
Someone did get hurt there Friday. Or, at least, that’s what the officer said when he described someone being assaulted.
For now, all we can report is we are still working on solving the “mystery in tent city!”
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