A headline you'll never see in this or any other newspaper: "Wife-killer harmless guy, had a few drinks."
There is an odious pecking order to victims of violence and thus poor Ross Hammond has received abysmally short shrift as a crime statistic.
The 32-year-old wasn't even on the autopsy table yet – three to five stab wounds to the chest and abdomen, coroner can't tell for certain because of all the surgical incisions made as doctors tried to save Hammond's life – before homeless advocates were pre-emptively rehabilitating the four young adults charged with aggravated assault, shortly to be elevated, likely to second-degree murder. By the by, the quartet – two male, two female – had been drinking, according to a friend.
Compassion, it would appear, should accrue to the accused instead because, like, they were clearly indigent and, okay, at least one knife was drawn and plunged into flesh, but let's not lose sight of the bigger issue, ergo, homelessness and destitution and, if only Hammond hadn't reacted so provocatively when accosted for money none of this would have happened. Blaming the victim has not fallen entirely out of practice.
As one sociologist noted afterwards, remove the aggressive panhandling element and this was all just another one-on-one assault, ho-hum, happens all the time.
It wasn't one on one. It was, as homicide detective Gary Giroux told the Star yesterday, "four on one, not exactly a fair fight.''
And menacing begging – not passive, not even common, though an escalating societal malaise in Toronto – was a central factor in the tragedy. Presumably, to save our skins, we should all just shuffle along, suck up the hounding.
Notice no politician has swung by the victim's home to offer condolences to a grieving family, as has become all but optically essential in death by the gun. Gangland violence: Bad. Panhandler violence: Not so much.
Hammond, Toronto's 51st homicide this year, was strolling along Queen St. W. just after midnight last Thursday when approached by a cadger hitting him up for money. Police say a dispute erupted and very quickly turned lethal, Hammond assaulted by the party of four.
"I'm not saying (Hammond) was squeaky clean. No doubt he did say something to them, probably in colourful language," says Giroux. "But those (panhandlers) were very aggressive in their language and posture. Voices were raised, punches were thrown, and within seconds this got very serious."
.....i was only kidding about the last word~
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