Bystanders more at risk now

Dec. 31, 2005. 07:43 AM

PETER EDWARDS

STAFF REPORTER

It's been almost 15 years since masked hitmen walked up to gang leader Asau Tran at 3:20 a.m. in the Pot of Gold nightclub and opened fire.

When the submachinegun fire stopped in the popular karaoke club on Dundas St. W. near Beverley St., Tran lay dead alongside his business associate Tony Pun and hostess Amy Liu.

They were among the city's 89 homicide victims of 1991 — the worst year for homicides in Toronto's history.

Crime experts today take no comfort in the fact that there have been 10 fewer killings in Toronto this year than in 1991, and say today's gun violence places bystanders at far greater risk.

"They (gang killers today) tend to shoot more and are less accurate when they do shoot," said Antonio Nicaso, a senior partner in the Soave Consulting Group and the author of several books on organized crime.

Today's gangland killers are often far younger and more impulsive than the Pot of Gold gunmen, experts say.

"It seems to me they're just randomly firing away," says Mike Davis, who was on the Toronto police homicide squad for 16 years before becoming a crime consultant in Mendelson Davis Consulting Partners.

That makes them far more prone to hit bystanders, like the Boxing Day gunfire on Yonge St. that killed 15-year-old Jane Creba and injured six others.

Nicaso notes that as many as 15 people were involved in the Boxing Day gunfire, and yet no gang members were believed to be among the seven people who were hit by bullets.

Particularly troubling for Nicaso are statistics that show 38 of the murders in 1991 — or 43 per cent — involved guns, compared with 33 of the city's 61 murders in 2001 — or 54 per cent.

This year, 52 of the city's 78 murders — 67 per cent — involve guns.

That's a 24 per cent increase from 1991 and Nicaso doesn't see things getting better soon.

"The situation is getting worse," Nicaso says.

"There has been an increase in gun-related murder since 1991.... For gun-related murder, this (2005) was the worst year."

Police say gang violence accounts for most of this year's 52 shooting deaths. In 1991, 28 slayings — almost a third of the city's total — were blamed on gangs and the drug trade.

It's believed Tran's murder was ordered in New York City as revenge for the murder in February 1991 of Vinh Duc Tat, a dai lo or local gang leader connected to the Born to Kill gang.

Another 1991 mob hit took the life of Giovanni Costa, a Thornhill man who was shot to death as he drove his car just a block from his Draper Blvd. home.

While Costa wasn't involved in any criminal activity, police believe he was targeted for execution simply because he was related to major Mafia figures.

That slaying involved careful decision-making and planning — both in Canada and Italy, Nicaso notes.

No bystanders were injured — a sharp contrast to the Boxing Day shooting, when no intended victims were hit and seven bystanders were shot.

Back in 1991, gangland killing was generally a last resort, after threats and mediation failed, Nicaso says.

"When you start shooting, you attract a lot of attention from media and police," Nicaso says.

"That's what old school organized crime wants to avoid. These people (new youth gangs), they enjoy all of this attention.

"Definitely, they don't value life, including their own," Nicaso says.

Nicaso's grim assessment is shared by Davis, who notes that gang attacks this year have taken place in schoolyards, crowded shopping areas and even at a funeral.

"It's just so brazen," Davis says. "It's unbelievable. They're young and they just don't care."

York University sociologist Desmond Ellis cautions against taking one year's crime statistics out of context.

Toronto's murder rate is still less than half of that of Regina, where the killing rate per 100,000 people was 4.98 per cent.

Toronto's is also less than the murder rate for Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver or Calgary.

Canada's murder rate is similar to that of Finland, and pales compared to those of South Africa, Russia and the United States.

"Canada's violent crime rate is still among the lowest," says Ellis, who will be teaching a course on Toronto youth gangs at York next spring. "We are fairly good in Canada. That's stable."

However, statistics support the argument by Nicaso and Davis that guns have become relatively easy for youths to get on Toronto streets.

There were an average of 10 people per year shot dead in Toronto with guns in the four-year period from 1987 to 1990 — less than a fifth of the 2005 total.

Ellis would like to know what has happened since 1991 to make a life of guns and gangs more attractive to Toronto youth.

"Focus the attention on those who make the rules," says Ellis.

"What is it that they have been doing to make the streets and its allure more attractive to young kids?"

Meanwhile, Davis says that murders get harder to solve as shooting gets wilder and more frequent.

"Years ago, you'd have witnesses who'd come forward," Davis says. "Now, you have that mentality that you used to see only in organized crime — that wall of silence.

"I think people are afraid to testify."

Whatever has changed on Toronto streets, Davis doesn't consider it simply a statistical blip or something that can be ignored.

"This didn't just occur overnight," Davis says.