Keeping Things in Perspective
As much as I feel compelled to write about the abundant crap in the world–and local crap in particular–it’s important to keep things in perspective. One of those things is the question of safety in Canada’s biggest city. Read on….
GTA murders drop in 2008 — For police Chief Bill Blair, the blander Toronto is, the better he likes it.
Last year, the GTA became a safer place to live. Toronto and three of the four regions saw the number of homicides decrease in 2008 or stay the same compared to a year earlier. The number of murders in Toronto dropped to 70 from 84 in 2007. Durham Region had six murders, the same as the prior year, while York and Halton had one murder each, down from five and two respectively. In the entire GTA, there were nine fewer murders.
The only exception was Peel Region, which experienced its most violent year ever. There were 27 homicides in Peel last year – 11 in Brampton and 16 in Mississauga – up from 17 in 2007 and 10 in 2006. These numbers appear to support a Statistics Canada report released in July that said Greater Toronto is the safest metropolitan area in Canada, reporting the fewest crimes per capita of any community with more than 500,000 people.
Despite the drop in murders in the GTA, there was no shortage of high-profile killings. Three of them were domestic murders, including the August death of 7-year-old Katelynn Sampson, whose legal guardian called 911 to say the child had stopped breathing. When emergency officials arrived they saw obvious signs of trauma on her body. Donna Irving and her common-law partner Warren Johnson were charged with first-degree murder. Residents of a Scarborough neighbourhood were shocked when police carried four bodies out of a home in November. Keith Delong had stabbed his wife Wanda, 64, and their children, Elizabeth, 41, and Richard, 38, before shooting himself.
Later that month, Durham was the scene of a chilling multiple domestic homicide. Gino Petralia, 47, was shot dead by police after he had fatally stabbed Leslie Kelly, 26, at a birthday party. Her husband Rick, 29, and son Nathan, 3, also died of their wounds. Nathan’s 5-year-old brother Riley is recovering. There were two other high-profile multiple murders in Toronto. Dylan Ellis, 26, and Oliver Martin, 25, were shot dead in June while sitting in their SUV outside a friend’s house. Police, who suspect it was a case of mistaken identity, are still looking for suspects. Adrian Inglis Bannerman, 29, Aaron Brendan Macdonald, 20, and Kurt Atiba Charles, 27, were also shot in an SUV about a month later in an unrelated incident.
<snip>
But the GTA is still one of the safest places in the world, he said. “Much of the death and homicides is related to the business of gangs and people who have willingly put themselves in danger,” he said. “We stand a much greater chance of dying in an automobile accident or dying of food poisoning than we do as an intended victim of a gun crime. “We need to keep that in perspective. Toronto is a very safe big city.”