Five days. Five shootings. Three dead. Eight injured. Busy intersections. Public spaces. Broad daylight. A long weekend of bloodshed in Toronto that started Friday morning with a woman allegedly pulling out a shotgun and injuring a pedestrian and a cyclist would by Tuesday morning include a daylight shooting in Queen St. W.’s shopping district that killed two, an evening shooting in the busy Kensington Market — where one of four injured died Wednesday — and another shooting just after last call in the Fashion District. Toronto’s seen an increase in gun violence in recent months, but the move into highly public and busy downtown areas has experts saying the city as a whole is awakening to the kind of gun violence many communities experience in their day-to-day lives as social media allows for gun violence to spread from traditionally low-income residential areas into places of leisure and entertainment.“Toronto is under siege right now, and the mayor cannot continue to say it’s safe,” said Louis March, founder of the Zero Gun Violence Movement.March, whose group does outreach work in communities affected by gun violence, said social media — with people posting their whereabouts on apps such as Instagram — has made it easier for members of violent gangs to locate and attack each other. He said previously the majority of shootings were in the confines of community housing areas — generally characterized by poverty, lack of employment, lack of education, mental health issues and drugs. Now, the violence is spilling out of those areas.“Now there are shootings in Yorkville, on Queen St., King St. The targets are found in schools and children’s playgrounds,” he said.Speaking to CP24 Tuesday morning, Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders said he was worried about the “brazenness” of some of the weekend shootings, adding that it was “not the norm” to have gun violence in br ...
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