Police display seized firearms, taken as part of an investigation called Operation Moneypenny, in Toronto, on April 11, 2023.Kiernan Green/The Canadian Press
This week in my Toronto neighbourhood, a scene of utter mayhem unfolded.
It happened just after 11:00 on Monday night. Undercover cops were staking out a recording studio on Queen Street West near Dufferin Street. Suddenly, a stolen white Honda pulled up. Three guys armed with handguns jumped out. They started shooting toward the back of the studio building at 1196 Queen, where dozens of people had gathered for a birthday party. Several of the partygoers rushed out and returned fire.
The shooters from the Honda took cover behind a parked car. They didn’t know it, but it was a ghost car with two plainclothes police officers inside.
The cops ducked for cover as bullets peppered the vehicle.
Reinforcements arrived, sirens screaming. One police car rammed the Honda, disabling it. The three shooters took off on foot. Police caught one of them and swooped in on the recording studio.
As the police said in a briefing on Thursday, it was like a scene from a movie. By the time it was over, they had taken 23 people into custody and seized 16 firearms, including two assault rifles. Many of the guns had been adapted to be fully automatic, meaning they could spray bullets with a single squeeze of the trigger. About 100 bullets were fired during the gun battle. Some hit nearby buildings.
All of this, remember, transpired not in some deserted plaza on the edge of town, but in the heart of the busy strip known as West Queen West. Across the street from 1196 stands a mid-rise condominium, behind it a bustling supermarket. Two boutique hotels and a popular bakery are steps away. That no one was killed or even shot is truly miraculous.
Toronto, it has to be said, is still a reasonably safe city. The battle on Queen stood out because it was so extraordinary. But the city’s sense of security is eroding. First came a number of random attacks on public transit and city sidewalks. Then a rash of car thefts, carjackings and home invasions.
Police say the number of young people arrested for firearms offences has soared. More youths are being recruited by gangs. Among those picked up on Monday night was a 16-year-old who was a suspect in a fatal shooting during a home invasion last spring. As the head of police detective operations Joe Matthews said: “It should alarm all of us that the young people we took into custody are already heavily involved in serious activity and armed with high-powered firearms.”
In our sped-up social-media age, beefs between gangs can turn violent in minutes. Staff Superintendent Matthews said the partygoers on Queen were “brazenly displaying” their weapons online. A video shows them dancing in the closely packed studio while waving their guns in the air.
Getting hold of those weapons appears to be child’s play. All of the 16 guns seized – 16 in one incident! – came from the United States. With a U.S. border crossing just a couple of hours away from Toronto, the problem is obvious and nearly impossible to solve. Even presidents like Barack Obama and Joe Biden failed to make a serious dent in the country’s gun-violence crisis. Now Donald Trump is promising to roll back even the modest gun-control measures they brought in.
Police here blame the courts for some of what they are seeing. The 16-year-old was under a firearms prohibition when he was arrested on Queen. Two of the others they ended up charging were out on bail.
Ottawa toughened the bail laws earlier this year to make it harder for those accused of violent offences, including those involving firearms, to get out of jail while awaiting their day in court. It does not seem to be working. In a Vancouver suburb this summer, a 30-year-old woman was killed by an unknown attacker who entered her home. The man accused of the crime had a violent past and an endless rap sheet yet was released on bail just days earlier.
The police tape and the shell casings were gone by the time I visited the scene of the Toronto shootout on Thursday morning. Streetcars trundled along Queen. The Nashville hot chicken joint around the corner from 1196 was opening for the day. A couple carrying bright pink balloons in honour of Taylor Swift were preparing to go to a pre-concert party. Their T-shirts said: Welcome to Toronto.