FUREY: Toronto's psyche under siege this summer
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Just when the city gets over one incident, there’s another one waiting in the wings.
Not again. Not another one. That’s what so many people were saying when they woke up Monday.
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The shooting rampage Sunday night in the popular Greektown stretch of Toronto’s Danforth has now claimed two lives and left another 13 injured. It was a familiar place, somewhere that everyone has a memory of and a story to tell.
The same goes for the stretch of Yonge Street where, three months ago to the day, a young man allegedly drove a van along the sidewalk, killing 10 people and injuring another 14.
And the same goes for the area around the CN Tower and Rogers Centre, where there was a heightened police presence that they chalked up to “credible information” about another vehicular ramming threat. And this was less than two weeks ago.
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Then you have the series of shooting deaths in the past few months, the news that Toronto is already on pace to double the number of homicides from last year. Two young girls shot in a playground. A young woman randomly killed as she sat in a car.
It’s just not right. It feels different. There is a “newness” to all of this, to take the word used by Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders in his press conference on Monday.
Speaking of those press conferences, there’s frustration at the general lack of information. Not just about the Danforth shooting. But about all of these stories. People have more questions than they’ve got answers. They then rush to fill the void with their own theories and fears. Sometimes the record never gets corrected.
We all want to say the police are doing a great job. We really do. But look at the Bruce McArthur case, how long that twisted saga continued to fester. Or how we still know nothing about the murders of Barry and Honey Sherman.
Whether you’re a guy on the street or a billionaire in a mansion, the city just doesn’t feel safe anymore. And that is really what’s changed. The feeling of it all.
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It’s like Toronto’s psyche is under siege, constantly taking a beating with bad news coming at us non-stop. Sure, the actual crimes differ. The locations vary. The victims come from all walks of life. But combined it has a disorienting effect.
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Then there’s the general feeling of urban decay that has come from the heightened guns and gangs activity in our streets and how drug addicts and their dealers are making a mess of areas like Moss Park and Queen & Bathurst and yet seem to face no consequences.
What is going on? Just who the hell is running this city anyway?
Politicians are on hand to offer their “thoughts and prayers.” Sometimes they’ll even announce a new program or a funding initiative. Will these make things better? Maybe. We’ll see.
Right now, though, it certainly doesn’t feel like we’re headed in a better direction.
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