No One Will Fault Chief Blair For His Efforts

Beefing up Toronto's force
250 new troops set to tackle crime, panhandlers, pedestrian safety
By SUE-ANN LEVY

Toronto police Chief Bill Blair was en route to a graduation ceremony at C.O. Bick college late last week when I nabbed him for a status report on the deployment of his officers to the front lines.

He told me -- quite proudly -- that with the graduation of the 144 new officers and their deployment across the city starting Tuesday, they'll achieve their target of 5,510 uniformed officers, or some 250 more uniformed officers on the force compared to one year ago.

What is being done to ensure that officers leaving/retiring are replaced?

In fact, he refuted a report on the agenda of tomorrow's first executive committee meeting which indicates the force won't reach the 5,510 complement until September.

He said the provincial funding to help hire the 250 new officers was accelerated -- together with the number of training spots available to would-be officers -- to get the cops on the streets by the end of 2006.

"I'm 15 days late ... we're graduating them today (Jan. 11) and they'll be deployed on the 15th of January," Blair said. The pressure to hire new officers and put more of the existing complement back on the streets had come, of course, following the summer of 2005 when the number of people slain on the city's streets due to gun violence skyrocketed. The fatal Boxing Day shooting of 15-year-old Jane Creba on Yonge St. capped what came to be known as he Year of the Gun.

" We've significantly increased the number of officers who are in neighbourhoods working and walking and riding bikes," Blair said.

The fact 2006 ended with 69 murders in total (28 by gun) compared to 79 (52 by gun) in 2005 was testament to the "impact" of the extra officers, he says.

"By putting more officers out there, in the right places and doing the right things, it makes a real difference," he said.

PROGRESS MADE

In addition to taking down some of the city's major gangs, the chief insists they've made "real progress" tackling the city's crime issues on several fronts: They arrested more people last year than any year in the history of their service (some 60,000 criminal code arrests), the number of violent offenders kept in custody has jumped 11% and they've clamped down on those violating bail conditions.

Why only 11%?

He noted traffic enforcement is also up 18%.

Police services board chairman Alok Mukherjee said he believes people are "seeing a more visible presence" of officers walking the beat on the streets.

"I think we're beginning to see the results of the efforts we started to make last year," he said. "I think it's important that we persist because the situation has just started to turn around."

Two city councillors beg to differ, however. Coun. Frances Nunziata, whose former city of York ward takes in 12 and 31 divisions, hasn't seen a noticeable difference in foot patrols in her community to tackle the huge number of break and enters and the prostitution problems.

I have to agree with Frances.

"There's a lot of officers out there handing out parking tickets but we don't see the others," she said. "The public isn't seeing a visible presence as of yet ... my community is still very concerned with the assaults and seniors being mugged."

Coun. Michael Thompson hasn't noticed a discernible difference in his Scarborough ward either. He's heard when people call different divisions to report an incident, the police still contend they're really, really busy.

"There's still a feeling that there's not enough officers," he said, adding that those who report a crime are particularly fearful because they believe there aren't enough officers on the streets to protect them from retribution or intimidation. Blair concedes they still have plenty of work to do, including making an effort to clamp down on the plethora of aggressive panhandlers in the city.

How long would it take Mayor Miller to bring in the necessary bylaws? To date he has refused to do so.

"The quality of life in this city will be improved if we address that problem," he said. Mukherjee says he'd also like to see the police make the issue of traffic safety more of a priority this year -- specifically the safety of pedestrians in some parts of the city.

He'd also like to see more efforts paid by the service to address the whole issue of domestic violence.

Without question this is a priority? Also we need to look curfews for young kids.

Having asked these questions I have one more......how many officers need to be deployed in the "Entertainment District" so that we wake up Monday morning and read Two men shot in entertainment district