AGAIN: 2 women SHOT by someone in moving car at #Toronto's Islington and Finch area

Tony Smyth (CBC)

The gunfire continues in Toronto, Canada in what some are calling the worst year ever. Remember I started my gun violence activism here. last night it was in Etobicoke at Islington and Finch were bullets were fired. Have any info call 1800222TIPS aka Crimestoppers. Your tips are anonymous.

Two 21-year-old women were shot while out walking in northwest Toronto late Monday night.

The victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries when an assailant fired shots from a car in the area of Islington and Vanhill Avenues north of Finch Avenue West.

Toronto police said they received a call about the shooting just before midnight.

Const. Victor Kwong, spokesperson for the police, said it is not known whether the car was stopped or moving.

The women fled to a parking lot near Islington Avenue and San Pietro Way, where they were located by police and then were taken to hospital.

Kwong said police have not released any suspect information. The victims described the car as small.

Investigators are looking for witnesses and searching for surveillance camera video.

With files from CBC

Man SHOT by police in #Toronto's city center, SIU called in

                       

A 39-year-old man is recovering in hospital after he was shot by Toronto police during a stabbing investigation in the city’s downtown core Monday, the 21st incident involving the service in 2016 that has triggered an investigation by the Special Investigations Unit.

The SIU is an independent agency responsible for investigating incidents where death, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault arise from interactions involving police.

A team of 10 investigators from the SIU has taken over the case. The SIU says the stabbing and shooting incidents are “part of one larger incident.”

SIU spokesperson Jason Gennaro said police were called to the area of Yonge St., just north of Dundas St. some time after 5:30 a.m. following reports of a man attacking another man with a knife.

Police arrived at around 6 a.m., and confronted the 39-year-old man on Dundas St. between Bay and Yonge Sts., a short distance away from the stabbing call.


North of the Eaton Centre on Dundas St., bloody clothing and at least four red cups were among the evidence strewn along the road and sidewalk.

A 66-year-old man was treated in hospital for a knife wound and later released.

The man shot by police “was struck a number of times,” Gennaro said. He was taken to St. Michael’s Hospital for surgery and is now in stable condition.

So far, there have been 21 SIU investigations involving Toronto police in 2016, the highest number of investigations involving the service in the past five years based on new releases published on the SIU’s website.

This time last year, there had been 12 investigations. There were a total of 20 in 2015; the SIU cleared Toronto police of wrongdoing in six of those cases and the rest are still active.

An SIU investigation doesn’t mean someone was killed or assaulted by police; the agency also investigates if, for example, a person takes their own life or otherwise dies in the presence of police, or if a suspect is injured but the use of force is justified.

Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash said it’s the outcomes of the investigations that matter.

“The issue, I think, for the service, is not the numbers, the issue is if they highlight areas we need to look at . . . And you’d also need to go back and see in how many of those cases they found nothing wrong with what the officers did,” Pugash said. “I don’t think the global numbers in and of themselves tell you very much without speaking to the SIU, without looking at, of those cases, how many of them they investigated and they found that they had no concerns about what the officers did.”

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Former GANG MEMBER turn Fitness Instructor SHOT in #Toronto #Canada

Alejandro Vivar/Toronto Star file photo

A self-described former gang leader who was trying to start his life over after being convicted in a drug-trafficking investigation in 2007 was shot and seriously injured while teaching a fitness class in Christie Pits Park.

On Saturday, just before 9 a.m., officers responded to reports of a shooting with multiple people injured at Bloor St. W. and Christie St. They arrived and found a man shot in the stomach with life-threatening injuries and another with serious injuries after being shot during the fitness class. Both men were transported to hospital.

Police have released a photo of a suspect, who was participating in the fitness class, police say. He is described as a black man, 25 to 30-years-old, five-foot-eight to five-foot-nine with short cornrows that were visible from beneath his baseball cap.

Darnell Simpson, a trainer, said that Alejandro Vivar, 35, his partner in the non-profit organization, 25/7 Fitness, was “shot numerous times.” Police have not identified either victim in the shooting.

The class, Prison Pump, was started by Vivar, who also goes by the name Jose. He earned his Personal Training Specialist certification while in prison and was released from Bath Institution correctional facility in March, according to the website for 25/7 Fitness. In May he started the fitness camp, described on the website as a “penitentiary inspired workout that prisoners use to get lean and muscular and come out of prison recreated; mentally and physically.”


In 2004, a jury found Vivar, then 23, and another man not guilty in the execution-style slaying of Gary Malo outside a cafe on Bloor Street West. Malo, who police say was a member of the Christie Boys gang, as reported in The Star at the time, was shot once in the chest and once in the head at close range at a restaurant called Jose’s Café, situated near Bloor and Christie, an area that was known at the time to be riddled with gang activity.

Police said at the time Vivar was a gang leader, of the Latin Americanos, also known as the L.A. Boys street gang that started in the area now known as Koreatown.

In 2007, Vivar and nine other men were arrested in a drug-trafficking investigation. He was convicted of multiple gun and drug charges.



John Struthers, who has been Vivar’s criminal defence lawyer since 2004 said he had kept in contact with Vivar, and said he was “really trying” to turn his life around.

“Clearly then, he was targeted,” Struthers said “I really think he was straight and doing well… (He) was determined to make a good life.”

During his time in prison, Struthers said that Vivar wrote to him often expressing his excitement for his future fitness business. Vivar also wrote a prison diary for The Kingston Whig-Standard.

“For those who don’t know, I entered prison a gangster, convicted of serious crimes. It was the only lifestyle I knew for as long as I can remember,” Vivar’s last blog entry reads. “Then years went by… my parents aged, I myself grew older and began to learn about myself, my weaknesses, my insecurities, and as time went on realized the things I needed to do to change.”

The day that Vivar was released, he paid a visit to Struthers, who said he was ready to restart his life.

“This is one reason why it’s so hard to get out of the lifestyle. You remain in danger,” Struthers said. “I’ve been a defence lawyer for 30 years and I’ve lost maybe 15 or 20 clients or former clients to violence.”

In his ‘Prison diary’ entries, Vivar shares his thoughts on how prison has changed his life for the better and how being there has shaped his dreams of being a writer, going back to school and being a better person.

According to police, the victim that sustained life-threatening injuries has since had surgery, and is in stable condition. The condition of the second victim is not known.

“When I was arrested, it was as if everything happened in slow motion I saw everything that was important to me.” Vivar wrote in April 2015. “If it were not for that night, I truly believe I would not be the person I am today. I would not have dreams of being a writer and going back to school and there would definitely be no Prison Diary. I would not have made the promise to live life to its full potential, to appreciate every single day, whether in prison or not. And to love life and cherish the people who care for me.”

With files from Laura Beeston, Betsy Powell, and Peter Small Toronto Star

Shootings have DOUBLED in #Toronto #Canada

Many of you will remember I was a gun violence activist in Toronto between 2007-2012 till I left Canada. Now comes word that shootings have spiked again. Fatal shootings in Toronto have doubled in 2016 compared with last year’s number at this point in the year. But experts caution these early statistics don’t say much about the state of Toronto’s streets.

The total of 13 includes two high-profile overnight shootings in the city: one man killed at Yonge and Bloor Sts. and another at Vanevery St. and Royal York Rd.

At this point in 2015, the city had seen six fatal shootings, while in 2013 and 2014 the number was eight.

This year’s figure represents a 116 per cent increase, but Jooyoung Lee, an expert in gun violence and assistant professor in the department of sociology at the University of Toronto, said that isn’t as significant as it might look.

Year-to-date numbers are tricky to analyze, he said, because there can be wild variations in shootings in certain months.

“There are some years where there’s a spike in violence in one month, and it makes people panic, and they feel like the violence rate is soaring out of control, but if you look in the last 10 years, the overall numbers for homicides and shootings are fairly consistent,” Lee said.

Data compiled by the Star shows the annual toll of shooting deaths over the past 11 years peaked in 2005, at 52. Since then it’s been steadily decreasing: to 42 in 2007 and 34 in 2012.

These long-term trends are better indicators, according to Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, an expert on crime in Toronto and assistant professor of criminal justice at Indiana University.

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Gunfire erupts outside of Rapper Drake's #OVOFest Afterparty in #Toronto

A young lady shot to death caught in the line of crossfire outside Muzik club, a club I've attended many times when I lived in Toronto and on this night was hosting Drake's afterparty for his OVO fest. Two men arguing, one draws a gun which left another man dead and this innocent young lady.

As gunfire erupted in the background, Arelia Navarro-Fenoy and her two friends knew they had to get home immediately, to safety.

The original plan was to head to a nearby parking lot, to get a ride from a friend after a night partying at Muzik, where rapper Drake hosted his OVO Fest after-party Monday evening.

But they picked up the pace, walking toward a line of about 10 taxis on Dufferin St. They tried cab after cab but, as friend Franca Abate told the Star, the response was always the same.

"They all refused us," she said of the cabbies, who appeared unaware of the danger. "They said it was only an $8 fare."

So they headed toward the friend's car to escape the chaos and confusion and return home to the Bathurst St. and Lake Shore Blvd. area early Tuesday morning.

But as they walked, they saw men arguing. Then one drew a gun, Abate said.

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Navarro-Fenoy was only about four steps behind her when gunfire erupted again, she said, and she turned around to find her best friend, roommate and business partner on the ground.

#KUDOS to @TorontoPolice for cracking down on the Sick Thugs and Asian Assassins. Keeping my former city SAFER! #Toronto

Toronto police are holding a news conference Thursday to show off items they seized when they raided dozens of locations as part of a sting targeting rival street gangs.

Police are also announcing a long list of charges that have been laid against 50 people who were swept up in Wednesday’s raids during Projects RX and Battery.

Most of the 53 raids took place in Toronto.

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Police arrest 50 people in pre-dawn raids targeting rival street gangs

Police previously said they seized about 10 firearms, cash, cocaine, heroin and marijuana in an investigation aimed at disrupting the activities of alleged members of the Asian Assassins and Sick Thugs.

The charges include firearm, drug and human trafficking, armed robbery and participating in a criminal organization.

Police said the arrests could lead to charges in a presently unsolved homicide that occurred in the parking lot at Yorkdale Shopping Centre last year. Michael Nguyen, who was identified by police as an Asian Assassins member, was shot execution-style as he walked to a vehicle. Investigators believe he was killed by rivals.

Toronto officers were the lead on Projects RX and Battery, and they had help from several police agencies when the pre-dawn raids were carried out.

The raids were the culmination of a long investigation that began after a series of shootings and reports about drug trafficking.

Project RX focused on the Sick Thugs, while the Asian Assassins were the subject of Project Battery.

About 30 people were arrested and 20 firearms were seized in the weeks or months before the raids.

Read more: http://www.cp24.com/news/police-to-show-off-property-seized-in-raids-1.1843236#ixzz336fLqoC5