They are shooting at will in Lawrence Heights.
And Toronto Police need the public’s help to find out who’s doing it before somebody gets killed.
“Public assistance sought in seven shooting/firearm discharge investigations, Lawrence Heights area,” was the headline of a news release put out Thursday morning by police.
The release reads like a list that could have been accumulated over a year.
Try a couple weeks.
– Monday, July 15, 2019, at 4:47 p.m. at 36 Pengarth Court “suspects exited a (silver SUV) vehicle, approached the victims and fired several shots in the victims direction.”
– Friday, July 26 at 2:38 p.m. at Tundra Lane and Varna Drive area a “construction crew located windows of a home had multiple bullet holes.” Later that day at 7:10 p.m.,” officers responded to a sound of gunshots call at 88 Ridgevale Drive” believed to have come from “a black four-door Hyundai sedan.”
– On Saturday, July 27 at 12:56 a.m. at Lawrence Ave. W. and Varna Dr. suspects in a white SUV shot at some people from the passenger window. Four minutes later at 1 a.m. there was a “shooting call in the area of Bathurst St. and Lawrence Ave. W.”
– Two days after, on July 29 at 11:51 p.m., five gunshots came from a dark-coloured sedan at Celt Ave. and Highland Hill.
– Hours later, on Tuesday July 30 at 2:06 a.m., someone in a dark-coloured truck shot multiple rounds into a vehicle in the Ranee Ave. and Varna Dr. area.
Seven shooting incidents in just two weeks! It’s a shooting gallery.
Toronto woke up this morning to its 35th homicide — a 16-year-old found gunned down in a stairwell in an apartment building on Falstaff Ave. near Jane St.
Those who are boasting that Toronto’s homicide number is far below the same time last year, when it was at 59, should remember an inch here or there and this number could easily be higher. The city is fortunate that each one of the recent Lawrence Heights shootings were not murders or woundings.
Whatever the politics, the people who are raising their kids in Lawrence Heights deserve better. As usual, the police are handcuffed in trying to find these shooters. Silence is not going to help.
That said, no government has ever taken seriously the concept of a funded information line to reward people for handing over the bad guys. If there was a multimillion-dollar reward attached to the Crime Stoppers program, you would be sure more people would drop a dime on the people who are carrying guns and preparing to fire them.
There also needs to be a better witness protection system and stronger bail for those before the courts on alleged crimes with firearms or deadly weapons.
Toronto Police take guns off the street every week and put gang-bangers in jail every day.
The courts release them on bail very soon after, when they can get a new gun that is being shipped in across porous borders from the United States.
If no one is killed, few seem to care.
But I commend Toronto Police for putting out this news release of the seven near-hits because it shows the danger that is imminent.
Seven shootings in Lawrence Heights! Hopefully the eighth doesn’t strike somebody you love.
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