Pubdate: Sat, 07 Jan 2006
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://torontosun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Joe Warmington

NO BACKING DOWN ON CRIMINALS

This must be a bad time to be either a politician or a violent
criminal in Toronto.

There's an enormous amount of heat on both. Nobody gets a free ride, I
guess.

Walking by the Jane Creba shrine -- that no one wants to remove --
shows the anger just won't go away no matter how the soft-on-crime
politicos and lazy gangsters would like it to.

They'll get their wish eventually, but right now it's a victim's turn
in the spotlight.

There's just something about a 15-year-old girl being ruthlessly
gunned down on Boxing Day that creates outrage.

A lot of us have wondered what took so long.

But better late than never I suppose -- although too late for the
slain car salesman, the girl at Just Desserts, the woman paralyzed at
the sandwich shop, the poor guy who was killed while watching TV in
his house, or the hundreds of others.

The politicians know time marches on and the public knows no one is
going to serve life for any of those sadistic acts. Tory Leader
Stephen Harper says if he wins the election Canada will see stiff
mandatory minimum sentences for violent crime. His deputy Peter McKay,
a former Crown attorney, tells me this will help keep the
bleeding-heart judges in line and prevent them from being pressured
into leniency.

The criminals must be worried because a lot of people believe the
Tories are actually going to do this.

"I know that all of the people in federal penitentiaries will not be
voting for us," Harper said Thursday at the Eaton Centre.

If Harper does come through it will be one special day for an old,
retired police chief named Bill McCormack. "I first talked about
mandatory sentences at a national chief's meeting in 1992," McCormack
says.

There's been three chiefs since he retired and too many funerals. But
he's got stamina. There was a time when McCormack was ridiculed but in
2006 it's sexy to talk about reforms. There's daily headlines on the
issue, gun summits and even national radio shows.

We now even have a mom turning in her son for having an AK-47 assault
rifle in his bedroom to cheer about.

She's a hero for calling police, yet really what other option did she
have?

If she spanked him she'd have been up on charges. It does bring a
whole new meaning to finding magazines in a boy's room though.

Wonder if that weapon was registered? There must be a duck hunter out
there somewhere wondering.

Another interesting thing about these last couple of weeks is certain
head-in-the-sand politicians have even discovered the subject. Tough
crime fighters like Mayor David Miller, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler
and Premier Dalton McGuinty are starting to talk some sense about
locking people up. Welcome to the battle, gentlemen.

But do you have McCormack's stamina? I guess if we pressure you,
you'll have to.

They all want to talk about getting guns off the street but when you
do that you also have to talk about crack cocaine, heroin and crystal
meth. You can't talk about one without talking about the other because
they're all related.

"There is no feeling like what you get from crack," says an excited
addict I know. "I can't tell you the things I have done to get it."

I knew this guy from hockey, when he had a wife, children, a home, a
bank account, a truck and a great job.

He lives on the street now. Everything's gone -- including his
dignity. Crack is family now.

"If they could just get the dealers off the street," he pleaded with
me, "if there was no supply, maybe there would be no demand."

You lock up every crack dealer for 10 years and don't tell me they
won't notice. You can do that if you have the resolve and you really
want change.

But the system is tougher on other things. When I was on Charles
Adler's gun show on AM640 at the Hard Rock Cafe on Yonge St., I
couldn't miss that all three radio station vehicles had been ticketed
for parking violations. No leniency there.

More prompt service by David Miller's City of Toronto.

The panhandlers, thieves and muggers must laugh. They better hope they
don't make the parking assassins into street drug officers.

I actually think that's a better idea for them -- to follow the
"blended policing" model laid out by Ross McLeod at Intelligarde
Security that would see junior officers working with experienced cops
to help "swell" the numbers.

"You take away their turf and you take away their trade," McLeod says
of drug dealers.

Relentless harassment of criminals is the way to go. They, says
McLeod, don't like it.

So the big question is: Can anything really change in
2006?

Yes, if that's what you want. Keep the heat on. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake