Silly Little Country

Then I'd Say There's Something Wrong with the Community

The Sun has a rather bizarre article this morning on the shooting of a 14-year-old boy in the West End of Toronto. I wondered of course when I heard about the shooting whether this was another gang-on-gang effort (I always wonder, as it does affect my view of the event in the grand scheme of things, always understanding of course that friends and family will be devastated), and the age certainly did nothing to cause me to dismiss the idea.
The article begins with this rhetorical flourish:

He was just a boy.
Was he known to police? Yes. Might he have fallen in with the wrong crowd? Perhaps. Did any of this matter to a west-end community coping with a 14-year-old gunned down in a field?
No.

No??! It seems to me it sure as hell should. It would make a difference to me whether my community had just lost a positive leader, contributing to positive community developments, or even just a participant in same, rather than, say, perhaps a thug, engaged with other thugs in intimidation and worse.
And for all the lovely rhetoric, we do get an apparent answer later.

A police source said Adrian was known to police for threatening and robbery, but he had no criminal record.
"He was a little man who thought he was a big man," the source said.

Of course the police source could be wrong, but if it makes no difference to the community, I worry about the community,

Labels: gangs, shootings, Toronto

posted by Alan Adamson @ 8:33 AM