Steven Mace
04-30-2002, 01:50 AM
Apr. 29, 07:19 EDT
Battle against guns heats up
Permanent anti-gun unit about to be announced by chief
Jennifer Quinn and Michelle Shephard STAFF REPORTERS
It was Constable Vicki Dawson, one of eight detectives moving through the west-end apartment, opening cupboards, lifting cushions, tapping walls for hidden compartments, who found the gun between the Saran Wrap and baggies in a kitchen drawer.
The black Browning 9mm semi-automatic was ready to fire. There was one live round. Behind a shut bedroom door in the Islington Ave. apartment, oblivious to the search party that occupied their home, slept an 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother. Their father had just been arrested in a phone booth on the road below.
The arrest didn't make the news, since the recovery of a gun, and charging a 25-year-old who has a criminal record reaching back into his teens rarely does. But it's stopping what could have been that made members of Toronto's gun task force feel they did their job that night.
"Anybody who has kids, nieces or nephews knows how they can be curious and how active they can be. It's pretty easy to think they could stumble on this and play cops and robbers. You just don't expect a loaded gun to be in the kitchen," Detective Doug Quan said. "You can just imagine what a different story this could have been."
Quan is part of the gun task force, an elite squad that was supposed to be a short-term solution to what everyone recognizes is a long-term problem. But because of their successes, Toronto police Chief Julian Fantino said in an internal police video this week, the task force will become a permanent unit, the first of its kind in Canada. The announcement will be made public next week.
Born of necessity after a spate of shootings and gun-related homicides, the task force was part of a five-point plan, Operation Gun Stop, announced in January — which included a gun amnesty and crown attorneys who specialized in prosecuting gun-related cases — and was scheduled to wrap up tomorrow.
Fantino said he was able to find about $600,000 to make the squad a full-time unit.
"As long as we have a problem with guns and violence in the community, I don't think we're ever going to be out of business," Fantino said. "We've achieved some phenomenal successes — successes that tell us there's a very serious problem in the community."
For a country that often thinks of itself as a haven from handguns, the numbers are startling. From Jan. 28, when Operation Gun Stop began, until April 25, officers seized 364 firearms and more than 82,000 rounds of ammunition. More than 600 people have been arrested for weapons offences, with more than 1,200 charges laid. Working hand in hand with the squad of about 10 officers who will be hunting the triggermen and their guns are another dozen officers staffing the permanent gang unit. Fantino has budgeted $750,000 for that unit, which has the job of identifying and stopping those involved in illegal gang activity.
In these units, information is currency, and both the chief and the detective-sergeant who heads the gun squad say they need to keep the intelligence flowing.
They take information from the officers in field units — like the force's drug squads and uniform divisions — and also follow up on their own leads. The units will provide support for other officers' investigations, as well as doing their own probes and disseminating information to other units, the gun squad's Detective-Sergeant Greg Getty said.
"To get information and to (keep) it — to say, `Okay, we've got information and we're holding on to it' — that's foolishness," said Getty, a veteran detective with 26 years on the force and experience in the force's hold-up squad and street violence task force. "We share the information, and we've got 5,000 people looking into it, not just 20 people in the ... task force."
This type of policing is most often referred to as proactive, or intelligence-driven policing, which means officers are trying to stop the crime before it happens, rather than responding to 911 calls. It's often costly, time-consuming and sometimes controversial.
In terms of resources, one target can sometimes take weeks of work to even find, since many of the suspected gunmen float between addresses without a permanent home. For instance, the 25-year-old at the Islington Ave. apartment arrested earlier this month rarely visited the apartment where his children lived. And the night prior to his arrest, 10 officers in vans, cars and on foot spent more than three hours in the fog just watching, waiting for him to arrive.
That type of surveillance could go on for days, but in this case they got a lucky break because on the second night Quan spotted the suspect making a call in a well-lit phone booth near the lobby of the apartment. The officers blocked him in and he was trapped. Their informants told the task force the man always had a 9mm handgun, but he wasn't carrying it at the time, which led them to the apartment and a search. Catching another break, the children's mother allowed officers in — a consensual search — so no warrant was required.
When Operation Gun Stop was announced amid much fanfare in January, Toronto Raptors all-star Antonio Davis stepped forward as the spokesperson and families of the victims spoke about the need for a ceasefire on the city's streets.
Also, Attorney-General David Young said a crown attorney would be designated in each court as the prosecutor for all gun-related charges, and that the province's witness protection program would be studied and expanded.
Still, much of the focus and money was spent on the gun unit, made up of 23 veteran detectives and younger officers, working from the force's intelligence bureau.
Most community activists were supportive of this program, but some were wary of the results.
"I don't trust pilot projects because their results are always used to push whatever issue the police want to focus on. For instance I bet police know enough to seize hundreds of guns, but if they didn't want the project to carry on they could take their time and only get 10," said T. Sher Singh, a former member of the Ontario Police Commission and a Guelph lawyer. "They can make numbers say whatever they want.
"There are people in the Bridle Path area who have guns, but I'm sure they won't be doing random checks there. They will be targeting the disadvantaged," Singh said. "I hope there's a system in place that will determine, based on good information, who they'll pursue. Then a group like this could have some sort of impact."
That's exactly the system they have already in place, Getty said.
"Every division tells us their information on their most wanted gunmen," he said, "and we go after these people and these people only."
A typical night for the gun squad begins at the intelligence bureau, where the team goes through their possible targets, decides on one or two, and then heads out in unmarked cars. They work all over the city, concentrating their efforts on the city's hot spots. On this night, the team has decided to "go hunting" in 51 Division.
They're looking at drug dealers, who are often carrying guns because of the danger and intense competition inherent in their work. So that's why the gun task force is interested in a lowly street dealer, because he's as likely to have a handgun as a high roller.
"The analogy is like a hot dog vendor. You have a cart, you have a corner, you have a business," Getty said. "They say don't come on their corner. And they protect their corners by using guns."
On a recent night, just after 1 a.m., plainclothes officers from 51 Division tip the task force to a possible suspect: A dealer working on Sherbourne St., wearing a three-quarter-length leather coat and a chip on his shoulder. The dealer had a beef with his customer so pulled out a Beretta handgun and pistol-whipped the man.
Just after 2 a.m., they spot someone who matches the description. The man strolls up and down the street like he doesn't have a care in the world, until the task force takes him down in an alley. This time, there's no gun. But the man — whose name is Tyrone — is completely unfazed about the presence of nearly a dozen cops.
"I saw this car go that way, this other car come up here, and I said, man, what's going on? I didn't do nothing wrong," he said, after being thoroughly searched.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1020031649946
Steve Mace
Battle against guns heats up
Permanent anti-gun unit about to be announced by chief
Jennifer Quinn and Michelle Shephard STAFF REPORTERS
It was Constable Vicki Dawson, one of eight detectives moving through the west-end apartment, opening cupboards, lifting cushions, tapping walls for hidden compartments, who found the gun between the Saran Wrap and baggies in a kitchen drawer.
The black Browning 9mm semi-automatic was ready to fire. There was one live round. Behind a shut bedroom door in the Islington Ave. apartment, oblivious to the search party that occupied their home, slept an 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old brother. Their father had just been arrested in a phone booth on the road below.
The arrest didn't make the news, since the recovery of a gun, and charging a 25-year-old who has a criminal record reaching back into his teens rarely does. But it's stopping what could have been that made members of Toronto's gun task force feel they did their job that night.
"Anybody who has kids, nieces or nephews knows how they can be curious and how active they can be. It's pretty easy to think they could stumble on this and play cops and robbers. You just don't expect a loaded gun to be in the kitchen," Detective Doug Quan said. "You can just imagine what a different story this could have been."
Quan is part of the gun task force, an elite squad that was supposed to be a short-term solution to what everyone recognizes is a long-term problem. But because of their successes, Toronto police Chief Julian Fantino said in an internal police video this week, the task force will become a permanent unit, the first of its kind in Canada. The announcement will be made public next week.
Born of necessity after a spate of shootings and gun-related homicides, the task force was part of a five-point plan, Operation Gun Stop, announced in January — which included a gun amnesty and crown attorneys who specialized in prosecuting gun-related cases — and was scheduled to wrap up tomorrow.
Fantino said he was able to find about $600,000 to make the squad a full-time unit.
"As long as we have a problem with guns and violence in the community, I don't think we're ever going to be out of business," Fantino said. "We've achieved some phenomenal successes — successes that tell us there's a very serious problem in the community."
For a country that often thinks of itself as a haven from handguns, the numbers are startling. From Jan. 28, when Operation Gun Stop began, until April 25, officers seized 364 firearms and more than 82,000 rounds of ammunition. More than 600 people have been arrested for weapons offences, with more than 1,200 charges laid. Working hand in hand with the squad of about 10 officers who will be hunting the triggermen and their guns are another dozen officers staffing the permanent gang unit. Fantino has budgeted $750,000 for that unit, which has the job of identifying and stopping those involved in illegal gang activity.
In these units, information is currency, and both the chief and the detective-sergeant who heads the gun squad say they need to keep the intelligence flowing.
They take information from the officers in field units — like the force's drug squads and uniform divisions — and also follow up on their own leads. The units will provide support for other officers' investigations, as well as doing their own probes and disseminating information to other units, the gun squad's Detective-Sergeant Greg Getty said.
"To get information and to (keep) it — to say, `Okay, we've got information and we're holding on to it' — that's foolishness," said Getty, a veteran detective with 26 years on the force and experience in the force's hold-up squad and street violence task force. "We share the information, and we've got 5,000 people looking into it, not just 20 people in the ... task force."
This type of policing is most often referred to as proactive, or intelligence-driven policing, which means officers are trying to stop the crime before it happens, rather than responding to 911 calls. It's often costly, time-consuming and sometimes controversial.
In terms of resources, one target can sometimes take weeks of work to even find, since many of the suspected gunmen float between addresses without a permanent home. For instance, the 25-year-old at the Islington Ave. apartment arrested earlier this month rarely visited the apartment where his children lived. And the night prior to his arrest, 10 officers in vans, cars and on foot spent more than three hours in the fog just watching, waiting for him to arrive.
That type of surveillance could go on for days, but in this case they got a lucky break because on the second night Quan spotted the suspect making a call in a well-lit phone booth near the lobby of the apartment. The officers blocked him in and he was trapped. Their informants told the task force the man always had a 9mm handgun, but he wasn't carrying it at the time, which led them to the apartment and a search. Catching another break, the children's mother allowed officers in — a consensual search — so no warrant was required.
When Operation Gun Stop was announced amid much fanfare in January, Toronto Raptors all-star Antonio Davis stepped forward as the spokesperson and families of the victims spoke about the need for a ceasefire on the city's streets.
Also, Attorney-General David Young said a crown attorney would be designated in each court as the prosecutor for all gun-related charges, and that the province's witness protection program would be studied and expanded.
Still, much of the focus and money was spent on the gun unit, made up of 23 veteran detectives and younger officers, working from the force's intelligence bureau.
Most community activists were supportive of this program, but some were wary of the results.
"I don't trust pilot projects because their results are always used to push whatever issue the police want to focus on. For instance I bet police know enough to seize hundreds of guns, but if they didn't want the project to carry on they could take their time and only get 10," said T. Sher Singh, a former member of the Ontario Police Commission and a Guelph lawyer. "They can make numbers say whatever they want.
"There are people in the Bridle Path area who have guns, but I'm sure they won't be doing random checks there. They will be targeting the disadvantaged," Singh said. "I hope there's a system in place that will determine, based on good information, who they'll pursue. Then a group like this could have some sort of impact."
That's exactly the system they have already in place, Getty said.
"Every division tells us their information on their most wanted gunmen," he said, "and we go after these people and these people only."
A typical night for the gun squad begins at the intelligence bureau, where the team goes through their possible targets, decides on one or two, and then heads out in unmarked cars. They work all over the city, concentrating their efforts on the city's hot spots. On this night, the team has decided to "go hunting" in 51 Division.
They're looking at drug dealers, who are often carrying guns because of the danger and intense competition inherent in their work. So that's why the gun task force is interested in a lowly street dealer, because he's as likely to have a handgun as a high roller.
"The analogy is like a hot dog vendor. You have a cart, you have a corner, you have a business," Getty said. "They say don't come on their corner. And they protect their corners by using guns."
On a recent night, just after 1 a.m., plainclothes officers from 51 Division tip the task force to a possible suspect: A dealer working on Sherbourne St., wearing a three-quarter-length leather coat and a chip on his shoulder. The dealer had a beef with his customer so pulled out a Beretta handgun and pistol-whipped the man.
Just after 2 a.m., they spot someone who matches the description. The man strolls up and down the street like he doesn't have a care in the world, until the task force takes him down in an alley. This time, there's no gun. But the man — whose name is Tyrone — is completely unfazed about the presence of nearly a dozen cops.
"I saw this car go that way, this other car come up here, and I said, man, what's going on? I didn't do nothing wrong," he said, after being thoroughly searched.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1020031649946
Steve Mace