Cynics Unlimited

Also see: The Jane Creba Factor

Approximately 1 month ago, 15 year old Jane Creba was shot to death while shopping with her family during Toronto’s busy Boxing Day sales. This senseless murder created international headlines while generating strong opinions from politician and citizen alike. People unanimously agreed that it was time to take action on Toronto’s escalating gun violence problem, but what exactly happened over the last month?

The Net Flared …

“Jane Creba” was briefly the number 1 search term on blog aggregator site Technorati. Bloggers from all over the world weighed in on the high-profile shooting, with the majority of blogs offering condolences. Some blogs (including this one) wondered aloud whether Creba’s demographic caused the sudden outburst of public outrage over gun violence.

“I think the death of Jane Creba is tragic, and horrifying. We should be this shocked and horrified about it. But we should have been just as shocked and horrified about the other 51 gun deaths this year. It shouldn’t have taken a white girl getting shot on Yonge St. for this issue to be addressed with this urgency and determination”
-Missy B, Missy B’s Spot (January 6, 2006)

This prompted indignation from other bloggers and columnists:

“At least the African Canadians can take some comfort in the fact that although they may be the victims of racism, at least they are not demonized like small “c” conservatives in our progressive and oh so tolerant society are –you know the ones that were labelled as racists, bigots and Holocaust deniers by former Liberal cabinet minister Tubby Caplan. You know–the ones who were demanding action be taken against gun crime before it became fashionable on December 26.”
-Arthur Weinreb, Canada Free Press (January 11, 2006)

“To suggest that the outpouring of grief that we have seen is because Jane Creba is white is simply off the mark and I personally take it as an insult.”
-John Lawrence, conservativejoe.com (January 2006)

Root causes of the crime were attributed to the usual suspects (American guns, lack of social funding, black people, Jamaicans, poor enforcement of laws, immigration) but there was no strong consensus on how the issue should be addressed.

Police Blitzed …

Besieged by public rage and the election-inspired prompting of politicians, the Toronto police force went into damage control mode and stepped up their surveillance and arrest of suspected gang members. Toronto attorney Jason Bogle, fresh from a birthday celebration, was mistakenly targeted in a high-profile takedown by police. Bogle –a one time scholarship recipient from Association of Black Law Enforcers- is now suing the police force for false imprisonment, racial profiling, slander and false detention. The fact that Bogle was a well-dressed black man in a nice car on heightened tensions among middle class blacks that they too were targets in the ad hoc gang crackdown. Police claim the takedown was a case of mistaken identity and deny any profiling.

A Reverend Evangelized …

The first of two anti-crime exports from the USA was Reverend Eugene Rivers, responsible for the much-heralded Boston miracle. Rivers was paid a six figure sum to, among other things, take a tour of Toronto and visit those neighborhoods largely responsible for much of the gun violence. After being warmly received by Toronto Mayor David Miller and police chief Bill Blair, the Reverend broke ranks with those offering the usual vague explanations to focus directly on the black community. Rivers both frightened and electrified local residents by discussing all the taboo topics related to the violence:

“Ultimately the crisis of the black community, politically, culturally and socially is a crisis of the absence of black fatherhood”
-Eugene Rivers, Sermon at Seventh Day Adventist Church, January 2006

Eugene Rivers also presented the 10-point plan, which served as the basis for the Boston miracle. These points included

• Church-run “Adopt a Gang” programs to establish drop-in centers for troubled youth
• Commission of youth evangelists to work 1 on 1 with street kids and drug dealers
• Broad economic development within problem communities
• Strengthening of ties between inner-city and suburban churches
• Establishment of rape crisis centers for women and treatment programs for abusive men

Rivers’ fiery evangelical delivery did not appeal to everyone attending his sermon-based lectures. Furthermore, it was not clear whether there was a place for the non-devout in his anti-gang initiatives. Most importantly, however, Rivers was gone well before he could put a hand in any of the implementation that would turn his lofty ideas into a Toronto Miracle.

Angels Descended…

Another American-born crime solution arrived in the form of the Guardian Angels, who attempted to set up shop in Toronto earlier this month. During 1979, former night manager Curtis Silwa had become so fed up with the escalating crime in New York that he founded the Angels – an unarmed, citizen-based, beret-clad group that patrols some of the big apple’s most dangerous streets to report wrongdoing. Despite billing themselves as extra eyes and ears for the police, New York officials were initially cool to the idea of a “vigilante” group doing police work. However the Angels proved useful to the NYPD and have since established chapters all over the world …

… except Toronto, that is. The Guardian Angels are trying to set up a Toronto chapter for the third time since the 80’s and City Hall’s response has been less than enthusiastic. Chief Blair denied ever being contacted by Silwa for a meeting, while David Miller dismissed outright the need for any citizen’s based group in Toronto:

“Toronto is much safer than Boston and Chicago … We need to remember what works here. Learn what we can from others, but use what works here and make it much more effective”
-David Miller on the Guardian Angels (January 2006)

The Guardian Angels founder disagreed:

“These gangs are going to get more fierce, more deadly and soon they’ll turn into Uzi-toting dope-sucking psychopathic killing machines, unless more creative approaches are used, and it has to start now”
-Curtis Silwa on the future of Toronto Gangs (January 2006)

Citizens were divided the presence of Silwa’s group. While some denounced the Guardian Angels as vigilantes that could exacerbate the gang mentality behind much of the city’s violence, others were willing to try a new technique that has been cited in reducing crime throughout the U.S. Curtis Silwa eventually left the country (on the orders of Immigration Canada) but vowed he’d be back to set up a chapter with the two dozen Torontonians who pledged to join the group.

The Mayor Campaigned …

When Jane Creba was killed, Mayor Miller was vacationing in sunny Spain. News of the shooting and subsequent public outcry prompted Miller to eventually fly home and issue a series of statements about getting tough on crime. Miller missed the hastily-prepared Toronto Gun Summit (as did the Premier and Prime Minister) but issued a series of please to ban all handguns from Toronto. Miller also trailed along Liberal MP John Godfrey, hoping to convince Torontonians that at least one Liberal MP should be spared in the event of a federal Conservative takeover in the GTA:

“John Godfrey … has delivered for our city — on public transit funding, on child care, on affordable housing, on immigration”
-David Miller on Liberal MP John Godfrey

This apparent endorsement of a specific political party angered some Torontonians, including St. Paul’s Conservative candidate Peter Kent. Despite rebuffing the Angels, Miller stressed the need for more [paid] resources to attack crime directly.

… And the Shooting Continued

The reactionary wave of arresting, politicking, finger-pointing, posturing, evangelizing and emoting did little stem the flow of gun violence in the GTA. The first shooting of the year occurred in the wee hours of New Year’s Day, and the rate of murder has risen since then. This past weekend, there were 3 separate shootings, including one in Mississauga by young men who were refused entry to a house party.

In short, there has been a lot of “action” since Jane Creba died on Yonge street, but not much of it seems to have impacted on violent crime. In fairness, Canadians will be going to the polls in less than 12 hours and the election generally takes precedence over all other political matters; however, there is very little to indicate that the politicians or even Canadians themselves have a definite direction on how to attack this problem. Cynics Unlimited may visit this topic again to see whether Jane Creba, like Jason Huxtable, Sepehr Fatulahzadeh-Rabti and other innocent victims, died in vain … but so far the outlook is not bright.

Throughout Toronto’s “Year of the Gun” there have been many proposed solutions to stop the rising tide of violent gun-related crimes:

• Setting mandatory minimum prison sentences for gun crimes
• Increasing funding for community social programs
• Using the church to spearhead cultural changes within the communities affected by gun violence
• Modifying and enforcing immigration law

One often heralded (and maligned) proposal is imposing a new ban on handguns in Canada. Depending on who you speak to, such a move will either usher in a new era of peace in Canadian cities or seriously harm the ‘God-given’ right of gun enthusiasts everywhere to bear arms. This ongoing debate will only intensify as it was recently reported in the news that an increasing number of local gun collectors are being targeted for robbery by street gangs in need of more hardware (this is contrary to earlier assertions by Mayor David Miller and Premier Dalton McGuinty that America’s loose borders were primarily responsible for the flow of handguns).

Gun control advocates have long maintained that placing a ban on handguns will instantly reduce the amount of violent crime on city streets; however some serious questions must be asked about the validity of this one-factor solution.

Most importantly, why wouldn’t criminals simply choose a different tool to commit their crimes? When Hutu militants were running low on bullets during the 1994 Rwanda genocide, they simply switched to using hammers and nails to execute Tutsi captives. Machetes are the murder weapon of choice in countries like Guyana, where they are in plentiful supply as farming tools.

Alas, the tendency to focus on the tool instead the assailant or the motive is a worldwide phenomenon. Witness the recent storm of controversy in Singapore concerning sexual attacks with aerosol cans. Over the past few years, there has been a growing problem with Singaporeans being sprayed in the eyes with cans of aerosol party foam and being sexually assaulted while disoriented. The assailants are largely foreign workers of Bengali origin and most of the assaults take place at large outdoor parties by swarms of young men.

The issue was brought to the international [blogosphere] spotlight by high profile female blogger Xiaxue, best described as a Singaporean cross between Michelle Malkin and Paris Hilton. In profanity-laden blogs entitled “Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, Orchard Road” and “Not letting life shortchange you”, Xiaxue describes in graphic detail the alleged assaults on several women (including herself) by young men using cans of the party foam.

“They apparently purchase those faux snow spray bottles, and when they walk pass a young girl, they spray their faces … Now not only do the girls get sprayed, they get molested … Why? Because they are not in their own country, and they think they can get away with it …Remember millennium? Man, that was the worst. I think I got molested so many times that day, I can’t even count. When I walked with my hands covering my breasts, I get touched in the butt. ”
-Xiaxue blog entry (December 28, 2005)

“If you think it is funny, please try to imagine the foam on your face, sprayed by a stranger you want no dealings with … Junne [sp] got her ass groped … The worst comment I read, was this girl who actually had a foreign worker insert a finger into her vagina”
-Xiaxue blog entry (January 1, 2006)

However, after making several lazy generalizations about the demographics of the assailants (for which she become embroiled in a nasty online dispute with fellow Singaporean bloggers), Xiaxue suddenly decides that the aerosol cans and not the rapists should be the focus of the Singapore government:

“I expect a ban of these foreign workers from Orchard or City hall is not going to happen, so I am gonna petition for the next best thing: The banning of these aerosol foam sprays … We cannot let this go on every year! Why should we let them spray us like this? Why should we allow them to touch us?”
-Xiaxue blog entry (January 1, 2006)

Readers are then invited to sign an online petition requesting that the Government of Singapore ban the use of foam sprays. As of publishing this article there are 2500 signatures on this petition. The number of signatures will rise further if the voluminous and heated responses to Xiaxue’s tirades are any indication.

Cans of aerosol snow spray are used to commit sexual assaults in Singapore. Should they be banned?

Reviewing the situation at hand:

• Singapore imports a large number of foreigners –largely young men- to perform menial tasks without any accompanying women
• These young men are visibly and culturally distinct in an otherwise demographically uniform society. There is a strong chance of isolation, as Singapore is noted for its rigidness
• Some of the younger foreign workers go to crowded Singaporean festivals in large groups, where they harass and/or assault young women. Their weapon of choice is a can of aerosol party foam, which disorients the victim long enough to commit a quick assault

Does it seem likely that banning otherwise innocuous party items is going to stop these assaults at Singapore parties? Are the groups of foreign men responsible for the violence likely to say “Well, the gig is up. Since we can’t spray the girls any more we’ll just relax in the corner over here and leave everyone alone”? Will none of the assailants consider using other agents like pepper spray or household cleaners?

If this outcome sounds ridiculous then ask yourself: why would banning handguns in Toronto be any more effective for stopping crime? The mere existence or even possession of a handgun does not make one a criminal. Furthermore, the banishment of handguns will not erase the conditions that made Toronto’s gang problems so prevalent in the first place.

• There will still be fierce competition between gangs for control of Toronto’s lucrative drug trade
• There will still be scores of young men from broken homes being recruited into gangs under the false premise of family and respect
• There will still be poorly-enforced and/or inadequate laws allowing offenders awaiting trial for violent crimes back onto the streets
• There will still be a culture of exclusion among Canadians, which may not directly create a criminal class, but almost certainly allows the criminal class to operate fearlessly in distrustful ethnic enclaves
• There will still be a lax immigration policy allowing the entry of 1000’s of unskilled workers whose social ills in their own countries are well-documented

Given the numerous factors behind the surge in gun violence and crime in general, banning handguns in Canada to stop gang violence makes no more sense than banning aerosol cans in Singapore to stop sexual assaults. If the draconian possession laws that already exist in Singapore are inadequate for preventing violent crimes, it is unlikely that banning one of many possible murder weapons in Canada will prove any more fruitful.