多倫多槍擊事件震驚加國

多倫多-- 這個曾經以北美最安全的城市之一而自豪的城市今年的槍擊死亡數量急劇增加。有些人指責武器從美國走私進來。也有人指責幫會問題。無論如何, 多倫多星期一的槍擊事件震驚了全國。在這個繁華商業區的槍擊中一個15歲的路人死亡，另外6人受傷。...

今年這個3百萬人的城市槍殺死亡數量幾乎是去年的兩倍。今年78人被謀殺，接近1991年88人的歷史紀錄。...

檢察官 Savas Kyriacou 說：「我認為，這一天標誌多倫多最後完全喪失安全都市的形象。」...

原文:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051228/NEWS07/512280376/1009/NEWS07

Toronto killing shakes nation
Shooting is just part of big issue

December 28, 2005

Email this Print this BY ROB GILLIES

ASSOCIATED PRESS
TORONTO -- Shooting deaths have jumped this year in a city that prides itself as one of North America's safest.

Some blame weapons smuggled in from the United States. Others cite a gang problem.

Whatever the cause, Canadians recoiled Tuesday after a gun battle Monday in Toronto left a 15-year-old bystander lying dead and six other people wounded on a busy downtown street. Police said the gunfire began during an argument between two groups of youths.

It was the 52nd death inflicted by a firearm this year, nearly twice as many as last year in the city of 3 million people. It raised the overall homicide toll to 78, not far below the city's record 88 homicides of 1991.

"I think it's a day that Toronto has finally lost its innocence," Detective Sgt. Savas Kyriacou said.

Said Prime Minister Paul Martin: "What we saw yesterday is a stark reminder of the challenge that governments, police forces and communities face to ensure that Canadian cities do not descend into the kind of rampant gun violence we have seen elsewhere."

Mayor David Miller said almost every other type of crime is down in Toronto, but the supply of guns has increased and half come from the United States.

"The U.S. is exporting its problem of violence," he said.

But John Thompson, a security analyst for the Toronto-based Mackenzie Institute, said Canada has a gang problem and that the country should stop pointing a finger at the United States. "It's a cop out," he said.

"The kind of programs that we once took for granted in Canada, that would reach out to young people, have systematically disappeared over the past decade," Miller said, "and I think that gun violence is a symptom of a much bigger problem."