When Cameron moved his family to a suburb north of Toronto last year, neighbours told him it one of the safest streets in the area. The roads were lined with cream-brick houses and manicured lawns. In summer, kids played between driveways; in winter, they dug tunnels through snowbanks.
But any hope of a peaceful life on Allison Ann Way was shattered when a house across the street was shot at four times in five months. The most recent attack came in early February, as Cameron was leaving for work. Moments after his children had headed out for school, gunfire tore into the neighbour’s garage and a dark SUV sped off.
“Whoever was doing this was trying to send us a message, and they did,” Cameron said, peering out from his garage. “This street is now empty, like a ghost town.”
Police say that the daylight shooting was the latest in a string of violent incidents linked to Toronto’s towing industry, a sector which has long been dogged by allegations of links to organised crime and aggressive turf wars.
I swear this was covered years ago in a CBC Marketplace segment or such.
it’s been going on over a decade, and filthy cops were giving out home addresses to hitmen and planned to kill a detention center unit officer.
Seven…so far.
“It’s beyond one … rogue cop. This appears to be much more of a systemic issue,” said Ian Scott, who served as the director of Ontario’s police watchdog from 2008 to 2013. “No matter how you cut it, it indicates some big problems in the police service.”
“Police are notoriously reluctant to investigate their own and charge their own unless the evidence is overwhelmingly clear," he said.
“It can be very difficult to prosecute police officers for things.”
HaaSS? Hitmen as a Social Service. For when the police don’t police themselves, you can hire someone to clean out the police trash.