they don’t fit the bell curve
Y S JAC KPOT KP FRIDAY’S JACKPOT
50
sleigh bells’ new album sounds like ’80s metal meets cyndi lauper page 14
toronto
Wednesday, July 4, 2012 News worth sharing.
metronews.ca | twitter.com/metrotoronto | facebook.com/metrotoronto
Despite recent gun crimes, this city’s safe: Cops Interpreting statistics. Homicides in 2012 are down, but instances of shootings have jumped nearly 30 per cent
smile and say...
profile pic!
Katy Perry takes a photo with her fans as she arrives on the red carpet at a central London cinema for Tuesday’s European premiere of her film Katy Perry: Part of Me. The documentary chronicling Perry’s life on and off stage opens in Toronto on Thursday. Joel Ryan/the associated press
Channel your inner Rambo
Woody Allen’s Rome is clean
Markham teen dies in crash
Itching for a chance to drive a tank like an action-movie hero? page 18
Forget Manhattan — the director seems to have found a new urban muse page 20
Two high school friends are injured and one girl is killed just days after graduation page 3
First the bullets flew through the Eaton Centre food court. Then, two weeks later, on a sun-filled patio in Little Italy. On Sunday, a man was shot while hundreds watched a fireworks display in the city’s east end. Just 24 hours before that, a stray bullet grazed a toddler’s leg in North York. In the wake of an expanding list of brazen public shootings — and an overall spike in gun violence — police are cautioning against characterizations of an unsafe city under siege by whizzing bullets. Guns are being used differently these days, they say. “Is there still work to do? Of course there is. But Toronto has been for some time and remains the safest big city in
North America,” said police spokesman Mark Pugash on Tuesday. “I understand that statistics don’t necessarily provide comfort, but they do give us the ability to measure over time what’s happened. And we know that over many years now crime is down in Toronto,” he added. Last year there were 49 homicides in Toronto, the fourth consecutive year murders had fallen and the lowest overall year since 1986. This year, sixteen people have died at the end of a gun so far. At this time last year, that number was 14. One seemingly alarming statistic shows 163 shooting victims to date in 2012. That’s up nearly 40 per cent from 119 at the same time last year. Pugash countered, saying that some people may be interpreting the statistics “too casually.” “The biggest increase in shootings this year are ones where there are no injuries,” he said, pointing out that if a gun
Advisors available at your convenience. By phone. In branch. At a coffee shop.
Safe — or safest?
That Toronto is getting safer is true, said University of Toronto criminologist Scot Wortley, who went a step further, saying Toronto and Montreal are the safest big cities in the Western hemisphere. • So far in 2012, 64 per cent
of homicides are gunrelated — one of only two years where gun deaths have made up more than 60 per cent of homicides in nearly two decades.
• Typically, 45 per cent of
homicides involve guns.
is fired in the direction of five people and nobody is hit by a bullet those people are still considered victims. “So we have 90 people this year who are considered victims, but have no injuries,” he said, citing a 60 per cent increase in that category. torstar news service
TM
Call 1-800-769-2511 to talk about your goals and how to get there. ®
Registered trademarks of Royal Bank of Canada. RBC and Royal Bank are registered trademarks of Royal Bank of Canada. Trademarks of Royal Bank of Canada. TM
63612 Metro_Banner_10x1.64v5.indd 1
11-07-15 11:50 AM