Young fighters switch to deadly knives

PUBLICATION: Toronto Star
DATE: 2004.12.14
SECTION: News
PAGE: A01
BYLINE: Betsy Powell

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Young fighters switch to deadly knives

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They’re easy to carry, easy to hide and all too easy to use. Knives are
the weapons of choice for an increasing number of young people, Toronto
police and school board officials said yesterday.

Denouncing the recent stabbings that have claimed the lives of three
teenagers, Chief Julian Fantino called knives “the weapon of
convenience” and said what’s most alarming is “the free-wheeling
disposition to pull out a knife and just stab someone and either injure
them or kill them” and the callous disregard of consequences. “Years
ago, at most it would have been a punch-up … Now we seem to be intent
on pulling out a knife and plunging it into the heart of a young
person.”

School board officials said yesterday they are seeing more students
coming to school armed with knives.

Bill Bird oversees discipline for the Toronto District School Board at
schools in downtown Toronto and East York. He said that despite the
recent stabbings in York Mills and near East York Collegiate, “we’re
nowhere near the Concrete Jungle school climate of the United States.

“But the one growing area of concern for us is kids turning to knives to
protect themselves in school,” he said.

“On the whole, Toronto schools are safe, our suspensions and expulsions
are down and we’re not seeing guns as much as we thought we might a few
years ago. But we’re certainly seeing more knives than we used to.”

Students seem more willing to report classmates who are carrying knives,
from pocket or household knives to the occasional switchblade, he added.

Bruce Cameron, the board’s central co-ordinating principal for safe
schools, said while the board expelled 13 students in 2003-04, down from
43 the year before, most were for using a weapon – usually a knife – to
cause or threaten bodily harm.

This stands in contrast to the previous school year, when physical
assault (without a weapon) was cited roughly as often as weapons as the
ground for expulsion.

About a half dozen students outside Jarvis Collegiate yesterday said
they knew students who carried knives. “People carry knives to use them
as protection or some people carry them just to show off,” said Ahmed
El-Hindy, 18.

Lennon Sweeting, a Grade 12 student, said he thinks “people carry knives
to look tougher, to show that image, ‘Don’t f— with me.’”

Kathy Bickmore, an associate professor at the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education, said students are products of their environment.
“We live in a culture where violence is normalized. Competition and
aggressive masculinity are encouraged.”

The trend toward more youths arming themselves with knives could also be
attributed, in part, to the success of the Toronto Police Service’s
initiatives tackling gun crime, Fantino said yesterday.

“We put such a big push on guns … You don’t see the guns going into
the clubs the way they used to.”

Staff Inspector Jeff McGuire, who heads the homicide squad, shares the
concern about knives but cautioned against placing too much focus “on
the weapon” and not enough on “who’s holding it.”

“A knife is so accessible … I’ve got a pocketknife in my pocket I’ve
carried for 15 years. But I’ve never pulled it out and threatened
anybody.”

He declined to discuss specifics about the knives being used in order
not to jeopardize ongoing investigations.

Fantino also suggested that stepped-up vigilance of club owners in the
downtown entertainment district has slowed the number of guns getting
into clubs.

A more insidious view is that some troublemakers favour knives to do
their dirty work because they can be easily concealed and help them
avoid detection.

“You can walk into a crowded nightclub, stab someone and be out the door
before anyone notices. With a gun, there’s a large bang and everybody
knows,” said a source familiar with gang activity.

During yesterday’s news conference, Fantino denounced recent violence
but noted there are “peaks and valleys” in any city.

In fact, the seven crime “indicators” – murder, sexual assault, assault,
robbery, break and enter, auto theft and major theft – show that crime
is down by about 12 per cent this year over 2003, he said.

But Toronto has dipped into a valley, with this past weekend’s stabbing
of Nabil Saleh, 19, who collapsed on the dance floor of the Swallow
Lounge on College St.

Eighteen-year-old Tanner Hopkins was also stabbed to death last weekend
when he tried to block some party crashers from entering his parents’
house on Bayview Ave.

Sixteen-year-old Andrew Stewart’s Dec. 3 death at the hands of a mob of
youths near his school, East York Collegiate, was determined to be
caused by multiple stab wounds to the chest.

Police yesterday released a poster with a picture of the teen wearing a
Blue Jays jersey.

It reads: “Find My Killer,” urging eyewitnesses to contact homicide
investigators with information or call Crime Stoppers anonymously.

All of the slayings are unsolved and yesterday police had no new major
developments to report.

And in the last week alone, a quick inventory shows there have been 44
robberies, including eight involving knives and two with guns.

Last month, a student was stabbed, but not fatally, in an alley near
Central Technical School.

In England, a lobby group called Knives Destroy Lives, led by a woman
whose son was stabbed to death for his cellphone in London last year, is
calling for a mandatory five-year minimum jail term for those caught
carrying an object with a blade longer than 7.6 centimetres and a
six-month jail term for carrying a shorter blade. They are also calling
on the courts to hand out harsher sentences reflecting the severity of
knife crime. Fantino said people who pack knives to inflict harm deserve
nothing less.

“It isn’t like they’re carrying it around to peel their apple. They’ll
tell you it’s for protection, but I’d like to challenge that and say
very often it’s for aggressive use.”

with files from Gabe Gonda, Tracy Huffman, Theresa Boyle and Louise
Brown