Pitting ungrateful and uncooperative communities when faced with crime (Toronto shooting)

The BBQ Pit
#1

In Toronto’s Scarborough neighbourhood there was a shooting the other night where two young people are dead and 19 others, including an infant are injured in a gun fire exchange at the “block party” of some 200 people.

You can easily find all the facts by Googling News.

What I’m shocked with is this - I’m reading Toronto Star article http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/crime/article/1227453--scarborough-shootings-2-killed-19-hurt-in-gunfire-at-block-party and some of the statements there just make me go like “WTF?”.

.

What is wrong with these people? Yes, with these people!

What happened to a common decency? Where do these people get the idea that persons who came to help (911 respondents) are deserving of their “offended” sensibilities? Don’t they realize that if there were no 911 respondents they’d be all alone because I don’t know anyone who would offer help to such scum but those who are obliged by the Government to do so?

Unbelievable!

If it was up to me anyone who wrongly looks at the police officer should go to jail.

That’s the only way to eradicate these ungrateful POS’s.

#2

The expectations of the some members of the public are way out of line with reality.

With the Toronto police dealing with that mess, someone somewhere in the city was probably calling 911 for some non-emergency reason (my child won’t do his homework; I locked my keys in the car; my ex called be a bad name on Facebook; my neighbor parked in my driveway; etc…) and today is telling his/her neighbor about how the police don’t care because his complaint wasn’t dealt with as a high priority matter. Police are not social workers.

Police are supposed to investigate crime and try to deter it in order to serve the public. Investigating crime involves talking to witnesses and taking statements. If the people present at an event are not willing to talk to police and give a statement then they have no legitimate complaint when the crime is not solved.

#3

A tad selective in your précis, don’t you think?

After all, if my daughter had a hole in her chest spurting blood all over me as I did CPR on her myself while I waited 30+ minutes for the paramedics to arrive, I just might be pissed off too.

#4

Well, yes, but with 20 shooting victims, it wasn’t like this particular victim was being deliberately ignored. It’s quite possible that they simply didn’t have enough paramedics to deal with all those victims.

Very sad for everyone involved. But it’s not the emergency responders fault.

#5

Many of the victims were “walking wounded”. Regardless, it is impossible to imagine a more critical victim than a “CPR in progress” (especially with active bleeding visible, i.e. likely still alive or, at worst, quite possibly resucitatable in the first minutes “after death”).

Remember, in 2009, a Toronto man died from a heart attack while a paramedic crew remained parked around the corner (for 35 minutes), evidently because they were afraid of the neighbourhood - a conclusion based, evidently, on nothing more than their intution.

I’d say there is some justification for the way people may feel.

#6

Wait—whaaat?

#7

Like most things relating to crime, it’s usually the tiny minority whose actions have a disproportionate affect on their community. People may not be cooperating out of fear not of the police but from the assailants.

#8

Too many damn shootings going around in the metro areas lately. Really don’t want this to start spreading - gang violence in Canada always seemed so knife-oriented and bystanders don’t die in drive-by shankings.

#9

The famed “Summer of the Gun” in Toronto was… 2005.

Every few years shootings in Toronto spike up out of sheer random chance and people go nuts over it, despite the fact that the city’s murder rate remains quite low. Then the statistical noise dies down and people calm down. They never notice when there’s an unusually murder-free year, as in fact was the case in 2011. The city record was set 21 years ago, in 1991, with 89 murders, which is still a pretty low rate for a big city.

Getting back to the OP, the reason people in that neighborhood distrust the police is because the police treat them like shit whether they’re criminals or not. It’s routine for Toronto police to accost black men and question them for no particular reason. When one of the local papers published a story proving beyond any reasonable doubt or logical question that the practice of stopping and questioning people without probably cause was aimed at minorities, especially black people, the police union responded by suing the paper for $2.7 billion. They lost the suit, because everything said in the article was true.

Like it or not, that sort of thing comes home to roost.

#10

I have the belief that after a shooting, people should be allowed to act like a POS for once. OP, you’ve just used up your quota.

#11

Yes. That will help the victims families and reduce the chance of it happening again.

#12

Maybe it’s the heat . . . in the 90’s today as it was for much of the last month (and horribly humid)

#13

It strikes me that, while being randomly stopped is a cause for justified complaint, it does not create a culture in which folks refuse to answer questions concerning a shoot-out at the scene.

As to the OP, I’d be angry too if emergency sevices arrived slowly, whether that was justified or not. People acting irrational and upset in the wake of such a tragedy is understandable. Refusing to cooperate with the cops though … that’s a result of fear, not of unhappiness with racist cops.

I disagree that the Toronto police are the same now as they were a decade ago, when that libel suit was launched. Things have changed, somewhat.

#14

Was it windy too? I’ve noticed that out here, in Arizona where the heat is a part of life, when its really windy, the police reports about violent crimes go up.

#15

Flatlined: I know that 98 degrees, yesterday’s temperature in Toronto, is old hat to you in Arizona. So, maybe you’re trying to whoosh me. But, anything over 90 up here is news.

And, to the OP, save your ‘WTF’ for him and her.

#16

Comes home to roost, for who? The policeman’s friends and family weren’t shot up and left lying on the ground. The police don’t need anything from these folks, the police are actually trying to provide a service TO these people and they’re being refused. So they leave, and go back to harassing black people and solving white crime, instead of arresting the scumbags who shot up the block party.

#17

Was that what the OP was doing? Excuse me; I thought he was acting like a racist POS.

Calling shooting victims scum.

Calling for a hilarious mass arrest policy.

But hey, I can understand that such events can make people angry, frustrated. It can even make them act like a stupid POS; I just give them a “shit pass”.

“There you go man, one shit pass, on me. No worries.”

#18

I don’t think she was trying to whoosh you KarlGauss it was quite windy yesterday and it was that hot furnace like wind so yes I can see where that would lower peoples tolerance to bullshit levels.

As for the shooting and the community reaction the police were quite clear that they understood why. In that neighborhood (and I used to work there back in the summer of 2005 scarily enough) if you’re the one who talks to the police even if the shooters get caught their friends and gang members do not and they will retaliate. People don’t feel safe there and that’s why they don’t cooperate. It’s a vicious cycle and everyone involved needs to cooperate to find a way out of it.

The police are doing an excellent job with the post shooting support, diverting every available resource to that area to reduce or eliminate any retaliation. Hopefully they can contain this incident at least.

#19

Go back and re-read as you have a serious case of biased comprehension. You are factually wrong – I called people in that neighbourhood who were hostile to a police doing their work. Call me whatever you want for seeing a clear connection between shooting itself and that attitude.

As for being called racist – that word has such a little value nowadays especially for me who is an immigrant to this country from a war zone and whose life dangled on a tiny thread more than I ever wished for. I may have low standards, but I’ll never understand where people get a gall to complain in this country (Canada, that is).

It’s time for a number of individuals – and, even some communities - to get over themselves. Same goes for “compassionate” people who – having no clue in my opinion - create a social condition for this plague to continue unabated. For freaking decades.

I will take no responsibility for this no matter how heavily it is being pushed on me.

#20

I’ve seen first responders, fire and medics included, wait to enter an area where there have been reports of mass shootings, until the police announce it is cleared of shooters and safe to enter. Is this what happened here?