The chief of police of Canada’s largest and most prosperous city is calling 2018 was ” a year like no other year.”
Speaking to reporters at his end-of-the-year news conference on Thursday, Toronto chief Mark Saunders said his department had been “incredibly busy” in 2018 because so many people lost their lives.
Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders speaks to reporters in Toronto after a van mounted a sidewalk, striking pedestrians on one of the the city’s busiest streets. Ten people were killed and 16 injured in the van attack April 23. (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)
“This was a unique year,” Saunders said, noting that two mass casualty events--the van attack in April and the Danforth shooting in July–pushed the number of homicides to a record number.
There have been 95 homicides so far this year in the Ontario capital.
That’s six more than the previous record number of 89, set in 1991.
“I’m certainly not looking for another like that in the foreseeable future,” Saunders said.
A screenshot from a cellphone video shows a police officer arresting the suspect in a van attack in Toronto April 23. (CBC News)
Saunders said police must improve relations with all communities to bring down the number of homicides and more officers are being hired to achieve that goal–132 in 2018 and a “couple of hundred” more in 2019.
He said gun violence remains a challenge because of the number of guns coming into the city, which he linked to the “high-risk lifestyle” of street gang members.
He said 514 handguns have been seized this year, almost double from 2017.
People leave an area taped off by the police near the scene of what has become known as the Danforth shooting. (Chris Helgren/Reuters)
Saunders said he welcomes any tools that could support a reduction in gun violence but declined to say if he supported a handgun ban in Toronto
Saunders noted that the public of perception of safety has changed because of the April van attack on Yonge Street and the July shooting on Danforth, but he said the city continues to be safe.
“There is no magic pill,” he said.
“You will never see an urban city that has zero shootings and zero homicides.”
With files from CP, CBC, Toronto Star
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