Third World Immigration: The gift that keeps on giving!

[MKSheppard]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L30189101

Toronto's image tested by violence, racism charges

Toronto's image tested by violence, racism charges
By Cameron French
31 Dec 2002 08:38

TORONTO, Dec 31 (Reuters) - It was once called "Toronto
the Good" for its law-abiding ways, but that image has faded recently as Canada's largest city battles a wave of gun violence centred on its Jamaican community and accusations police use racial profiling.

Almost every weekend this autumn -- and even the Christmas holidays -- brought reports that another young man had been gunned down on the streets of Toronto, which has long considered itself a clean, safe and multiethnic community, unstained by the violence and decay that have plagued many similarly sized U.S. cities.

Much of the violence has involved Toronto's sizable population of Jamaican immigrants.

In the most recent incidents, a man was killed and two others injured in separate shooting incidents on the December 28 weekend.

This came after a man was shot at a crowded west Toronto shopping mall on Boxing Day, while another man was shot and killed Christmas Eve.

This brings the city's homicide total to 60 on the year, 28 of them by gunfire.

Since late October, at least 13 people have been killed by gunfire, while several more have been injured, and the media scrutiny has sharpened with every death.

"Toronto the Bad: Another bloody weekend leaves three shot, one dead," read a November headline in the Montreal Gazette.

At least nine of the victims were black and under the age of 30, focusing public attention on what police say is a growing trend of tit-for-tat gang violence in the city, much of which they say is centred in the heavily Jamaican neighbourhoods of the city's northwest.

GANG WARS

"What we've seen, for the most part, are gangs fighting amongst each other, primarily for turf control and for the distribution of drugs," Norm Gardner, chairman of the Toronto Police Services Board, told Reuters.

"There seems to be a relationship between some of the gang activity in Toronto and Jamaica, where hit men are being imported to Jamaica from Toronto."

While only about two percent of Canada's 30 million population is black, the number jumps to about 10 percent in Toronto. Of those, about two-thirds are of Caribbean ethnicity, half of whom are Jamaican, according to government data.

Authorities in Jamaica warned recently that a turf war there could spill over to the streets of Toronto, prompting Police Chief Julian Fantino to say he will visit Jamaica in January to talk with security officials about common crime problems.

Community leaders say the core of the problem is poverty, as drug distributors prey on destitute teenagers, recruiting them from schools to sell drugs on the streets.

"It's not a cultural problem. It's a job problem. It's a business problem. I believe that young men are entrapped into this lifestyle," said Monica Willie, president of the Caribbean Association of Peel Region, a largely suburban area on Toronto's western border.

Willie, who immigrated to Toronto from Jamaica about 35 years ago, says much of the violence results from vendettas over unpaid drug debts.

"Young men who are poor get called out to go settle a score with someone who didn't pay up," she said.

Nevertheless, Toronto remains very safe by U.S. standards. According to government statistics, Toronto proper, with about 2.5 million people, had 59 homicides in 2001. Chicago proper, with 2.9 million people, had more than 600 last year.

Toronto's mayor, Mel Lastman, calls it "the most culturally diverse city in the world" with people from 170 different countries speaking more than 100 languages and dialects. The city's motto is "diversity our strength."

COMPARATIVELY SAFE

"It still is (a safe city), but it has problems like every other big city. When it comes to Toronto, compared to others, I think it's wonderfully safe," Lincoln Alexander, chairman of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, told Reuters.

Alexander, who was Ontario's first black lieutenant-governor and is also a former federal cabinet minister, was recently chosen to chair a conference on race relations, a meeting spurred by the fallout from a September 19 article in the Toronto Star, Canada's biggest daily newspaper.

The Star reported that although Jamaican-born residents make up 2.4 percent of Toronto's population, they account for 9.5 percent of the total charges for violent offences. It also noted that blacks charged with simple drug possession were taken to a police station more often than whites accused of the same crime and held twice as often as whites.

As well, the Star said, black motorists were disproportionately given tickets for so-called discretionary offences that come to light after a motorist has been stopped.

The paper looked at police arrest figures from 1996 to early 2002, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

"Racial profiling has been going on here and any other place that you can think of, so it's nothing new. It just happened to break because of the Toronto Star article," said Alexander.

While police initially denied any hint of racial profiling, participants at the November 25 meeting, which included police officials and several prominent politicians, concluded that racial profiling exists and must be stamped out.

"We acknowledge that there is racism in our society. There's bigotry in our society, and we can't say that we are free of that," said Gardner, who was quick to add that the Toronto Police Services Board does not tolerate bias-based or discriminatory types of policing.

"But I don't think the city's changing, and the city is very safe," he said.

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While searching I found a old article that was archived on FreeRepublic.
It is reproduced below....

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/795223/posts

Jamaica's bloodbath may spread to Toronto, cops say
Toronto Sun ^ | November 24, 2002 | Tom Godfrey

KINGSTON -- The bloody gang turf war currently plaguing Jamaica -- leaving 940 dead so far this year -- will soon be felt on the streets of Toronto, says officials of this Caribbean nation.

With that in mind, Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino has accepted an invitation from Jamaica's security minister to visit the island on a fact-finding mission "to better understand the dynamics" of its horrifying murder rate, one of the world's highest.

He said he's "open to doing whatever it takes" to recruit highly qualified minority candidates and will use January's visit to consult police on "specific matters."

"Whatever is happening in Jamaica now will be exported to Canada and other countries," Denham Town police Supt. Devon Field told The Sunday Sun. "It is happening now."

Jamaican gang members are also outraged that hundreds of deportees from Canada return home to compete for power and turf held by the more than 25 gangs that control western Kingston.

"These gangs see the deportees as a threat and are seeking revenge," one police officer said. "They're trying to intimidate foreign officials."

Security has been heightened for Canadian diplomats and RCMP officers here after reports that crime gangs are seeking retaliation for the smashing of their drug networks and the thousands of deportees who pose a threat to them.

An alert was issued about a month ago to foreign police and hundreds of diplomats posted at the high commissions of Canada, the U.S. and Britain, Canadian and Jamaican security officials said.

Canadian high commission spokesman Robert Richard said he couldn't discuss the matter, but security was increased at embassies abroad after the last Osama bin Laden tape surfaced about two weeks ago.

'MORE VIGILANT'

"We were requested to be more vigilant and careful," Richard told The Sunday Sun last week. "Security was increased at embassies all over the world."

Security officials said police intelligence showed gang members may resort to intimidating Canadian diplomats and Mounties by tailing their vehicles as they leave their sprawling, fortified West Kings House Rd. compound.

The homes of all Canadian diplomats are guarded around the clock.

Visitors must undergo security checks before they're allowed past the electronically operated doors that lead into the Canadian compound. All metallic objects must be left behind before visitors are let in.

Officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said police were targeted because they were circulating foreign-based intelligence to smash gang drug smuggling operations in Jamaica.

Police have been fighting to stop the transshipment of Colombian cocaine, destined to the British and North American markets, through the island. No diplomat or foreign government official has been among the more than 940 people killed in Jamaica so far this year.

Canada deports up to 300 Jamaicans annually.

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