Safe And Secure
A trial ongoing in Toronto revolving around the street murder of a resident of a west-end Toronto housing complex well known for resident street gangs, drug dealing, rampant violence and dysfunctional family situations with absent fathers and single mothers coping as they may, sheds a revelatory light on the dead end police face attempting to find witnesses or evidence that will help them solve crimes that occur in the neighbourhood.
Toronto has more than one such neighbourhood. Where a kind of law of the urban jungle prevails. Where the innocent and the law-abiding try to stay uninvolved, not to notice anything amiss, just wanting to get on with their lives. Knowing that if they decided to speak to the authorities, particularly police investigating a specific act of criminal offence, or violent episode costing someone's life, their own may well be forfeit.
It's what happened to Kenneth Mark, who wanted a safer, more secure neighbourhood for the kids growing up where he did, and where he lived all his life. He was not a gang member, but a clean-cut young man who wanted something better than to be involved in guns and rackets and gangs and illicit activities. When he decided that, for the good of the community, he would co-operate with police, he sealed his death warrant. Shot in the back of the head.
It represented a black-on-black crime. The neighbourhood Mr. Mark came from was also a disadvantaged one, comprised of poor and welfare families, and a lot of young black kids for whom the allure of drug trafficking and easy money seemed a neat way to live, when home discipline and a father figure to pattern themselves on wasn't available. The police recognize that this is a societal problem that has a distinct racial undertone. If they say as much they are racist.
And the academics involved in writing up their papers accusing police of a discriminatory race-specific focus complain that police should be keeping data that they can pick up and use, but they're not identifying the racial component present in the case files they draw up in concluding their daily activities, keeping the streets safe and secure for all citizens.
Toronto has more than one such neighbourhood. Where a kind of law of the urban jungle prevails. Where the innocent and the law-abiding try to stay uninvolved, not to notice anything amiss, just wanting to get on with their lives. Knowing that if they decided to speak to the authorities, particularly police investigating a specific act of criminal offence, or violent episode costing someone's life, their own may well be forfeit.
It's what happened to Kenneth Mark, who wanted a safer, more secure neighbourhood for the kids growing up where he did, and where he lived all his life. He was not a gang member, but a clean-cut young man who wanted something better than to be involved in guns and rackets and gangs and illicit activities. When he decided that, for the good of the community, he would co-operate with police, he sealed his death warrant. Shot in the back of the head.
It represented a black-on-black crime. The neighbourhood Mr. Mark came from was also a disadvantaged one, comprised of poor and welfare families, and a lot of young black kids for whom the allure of drug trafficking and easy money seemed a neat way to live, when home discipline and a father figure to pattern themselves on wasn't available. The police recognize that this is a societal problem that has a distinct racial undertone. If they say as much they are racist.
And the academics involved in writing up their papers accusing police of a discriminatory race-specific focus complain that police should be keeping data that they can pick up and use, but they're not identifying the racial component present in the case files they draw up in concluding their daily activities, keeping the streets safe and secure for all citizens.
Labels: Conflict, Crime, Culture, Ontario, Security, Society
posted by Pieface | 7:06 PM
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