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For 17 years in this newspaper and on radio, I’ve insisted Canada is soft on violent crime. Consider this recent example.
A home invasion in upscale Toronto neighborhood The Bridle Path saw three family members shot and two beaten with a hammer , and a guy who later turned up at a hospital with a gunshot wound.
Police were called.
The law requires hospitals to call in the gunshot victim for the very reason that while it is not illegal to get shot, a gunshot wound is at the very least, crime-adjacent.
The hospital doesn’t call in any other mishap, because of privacy, but the law recognizes that our rights can be violated to an extent for a time, due to the nature of the incident. An example is the RIDE program, in place to stop all drivers in order to possibly nab a drunk driver.
If there is an innocent explanation for the wound, that will be provided immediately by the guy with the bullet in him. If you shot yourself by accident, if your buddy shot you by accident, you are going to be very anxious for the police to know that, so they don’t think you’re criminals.
Police cannot hold someone without reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.
They found a man known to police for past actions with a gunshot wound who refused to talk, shortly after a violent home invasion What more reasonable suspicion should they need?
I talked on background to a legal expert who said to me, “A shooting every two days tells you the problem. Getting shot and being at the closest hospital (of which there aren’t many) to the robbery doesn’t say much. Being a known criminal isn’t much either.”
I replied, “If the shootings aren’t much and the known criminal out on the street isn’t much, we are screwed.”
The reply was, “In Toronto, that’s called Tuesday.”
Man wanted on Canada-wide warrant
The suspect has been identified as Daijohn Richards, 23, of Toronto. He is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant on the following charges:
Four counts of discharge firearm with intent to wound, four counts of robbery with a firearm, three counts of aggravated assault, break and enter commit/dwelling-house, possess prohibited device, disguise with intent.
Does that sound like a dangerous, probably armed, likely desperate individual we need to be concerned about because he was released?
The police say they will work hard to find him. I don’t doubt that, but I hate that they have to. They had him.
Law needs to be changed
If the law prevents the police from holding a guy in that circumstance, the law needs to be changed, but we have a system of lawyers, politicians and judges who fight anything that resembles getting tough on violent crime.
If this is not a black eye to the police, it is a rebuke of the laws we have that do not protect the public.
We give politicians the power to make law.
We give police a badge and a gun and monopoly on violence.
We give the courts the power to lock up convicted bad guys.
Yet we don’t feel safe. Some neighborhoods are hiring their own security — private cops -— taking matters into their own hands. It leans toward vigilantism.
That’s anarchy.
This starts and ends with politics, and we fail on that front.