By Dela Dorkenoo
Toronto Police Service (TPS) data shows 2024 ended with 461 shooting incidents, a 33 per cent increase over 345 in 2023. From those shooting incidents, 44 people died and 120 people were injured.
It’s a common trend in marginalized communities where gun activity is most frequent. With the increase in discharges last year, community advocates continue to push for safer communities.
Doug Thomson is a professor of criminal justice and has been working with Humber for 15 years. For the past eight years, he has been the research lead for the TPS Neighborhood Community Officer Program. His current set of research includes running focus groups and interviewing and surveying police officers and community members, finding out what works and what needs to be improved.
“These officers are put into a neighborhood and they get to know people inside their community, not for reacting to crime. It’s dealing with the underlying causes of crime and trying to help people in often marginalized neighborhoods,” says Thomson.
Thomson has monitored a rise of gang and youth violence for the past five years. Thomson says this is due to higher unemployment, a weaker economy, the effect of COVID and the impact of social media. Youth gangs are going online and challenging other gangs, which often results in violence.
The head of the officer program, Sgt. Zenon Costa-Correia asked Thomson for help last year creating a city-wide ad campaign to change people‘s minds about youth violence. The goal is to reach not just people engaged in violence, but also the broader community.
For this project, Thomson works with Marilyn Cresswell who teaches the bachelor of creative advertising at Humber. Cresswell assigned six student groups to develop and complete an advertising campaign against youth violence for the fall 2024 semester.
“In sociology and psychology, what you’re trying to do is change what is considered normal or good by targeting everyone around the person you’re trying to target. By saying ‘this is no longer acceptable behaviour and hopefully, the person in the middle changes their behaviour. The great thing about working with Marilyn and her students is that she is an expert in marketing and advertising,” says Thomson.
Thomson says messaging and advertising is just one piece to the solution. He cites the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit formed when Glasgow was the most violent European city. It integrated police, community hospitals, social workers plus many other agencies with a big marketing campaign. Scotland was the first to declare violence as a public health issue, akin to a medical disease. The program has seen success: from 2011 to 2020, there has been a 35% reduction in homicides.
Thomson believes the solution is simple. If you carry a weapon, he says, you’re more likely to be injured by it. If you don’t carry that weapon, you’re not going to be injured. He also pushes back on people in marginalized neighborhoods that would say they carry firearms for protection.
“If you carry a weapon, you’re less likely to back off and talk down the situation. You’ll resort to whatever’s with you and then you’re going to end up in prison for 15 years. If you don’t carry the weapon, you’re not going to use it. Why are you going to carry a weapon for self-defense? Why do you feel unsafe? Let’s change your feelings of safety. If everyone walks around with two or three Rottweiler dogs to feel safe, everyone will be unsafe.”
A 2024 incident that represents this idea of an arms race is a gun fight that occurred on Nov 11, where 23 people were arrested for a 100-shot exchange in front of a Queen West and Dufferin Street music studio. Fortunately, no one was injured. Social media use may have been a factor that escalated the situation, according to music blog @6ixsounds, but this hasn’t been confirmed by police.
If Thomson was hypothetically in power at City Hall, he would allocate investment into housing, jobs and community programs to build the community and increase access to resources. Ultimately, he says, people need to feel they belong within the community.
The legacy of Louis March continues
The movement against gun violence in Toronto lost an activist on July 20 2024, when Louis March died due to sudden illness. Before he passed, he was the founder of the Zero Gun Violence Movement (ZGVM) and had been an advocate in the African Canadian community for over 30 years. He aimed to create solutions to reduce gun violence by collaborating with over 40 community organizations, agencies and programs before he passed. The city held a celebration of life at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts on Aug 25, 2024.
Other community groups and advocates continue to push to end gun violence. On Sep. 25 2024, over hundred people marched from City Hall to Queens Park on the National Day of Remembrance for Victims of Homicide. Current advocates like One by One Movement, Silence the Violence, Danforth Families for Safe Communities and Doctors for Protection Against Guns still continue to advocate for safer communities.
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