Police chief calls 2018, with 95 homicides so far, a ‘unique’ year for Toronto
Posted Dec 27, 2018 12:01 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Toronto’s police chief says an unusually violent year in the city hit closer to home for most of the public because of two mass killing incidents.
Mark Saunders says a deadly van attack in April and a mass shooting in the bustling Danforth neighbourhood made residents question the safety of their city.
Ten people died when a 25-year-old man allegedly drove a rented van down a busy stretch of Toronto’s Yonge Street.
Three months later, an 18-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl were killed when a man sprayed bullets along the Danforth before shooting himself.
Toronto has surpassed its previous record for homicides in a year, with 95 recorded so far in 2018 compared to 89 in 1991.
But Saunders says the city remains a safe place to live, describing this year as “unique” and predicting violence would subside in 2019.
The Canadian Press
