TORONTO - The brazen daylight gun fight in a residential Toronto neighbourhood that left a 19-year-old dead Saturday underlines the need for tougher gun laws and a provincial review of how to fight urban gun violence, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Sunday.
In light of the tragic Saturday shooting and having spoken to the mother of Jordan Manners, the teenager who was shot and killed in the hallway of his Toronto school, McGuinty said he would like to see a provincial review of what's being done to fight gun violence
"That would take into account what we've all done, what's working, where could we still do more and how do we ensure that, here in Ontario, we don't become captive to an apparently inexorable trend in the U.S. in terms of the development of crime in large urban centres,'' McGuinty said before participating in the annual Portuguese Parade in Toronto.
"How do we avoid that?''
One way, McGuinty suggested, would be for Ottawa to bring in tougher gun laws that would ban handguns in Ontario and other provinces.
"We have an important opportunity at this period of our history to have a decidedly different gun culture here in Canada than we do south of the border,'' McGuinty added.
"We've got to renew our efforts to ensure we have in place all the measures on both sides of the ledger. We've got to be tough on crime as well as tough on the causes of crime.''
Canada's largest city has been rocked by gun violence recently with the death of 17-year-old Manners two weeks ago and now with a gun fight that erupted in broad daylight while children enjoyed the Saturday sunshine in their northwest Toronto neighbourhood.
Police are still looking for a late-model silver Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle carrying a person who opened fire on a car at about 3:15 p.m. Saturday afternoon.
The vehicles raced alongside each other on John Garland Blvd. for about three-quarters of a kilometre as shots rang out, until the car came to a stop, police said.
"A shooting in the middle of the day...it's scary,'' said Supt. Ron Taverner. "It's a total disregard for people . . . it's lucky no one walking on the street was injured.''
Paramedics found Jose Hierro-Saez, 19, dead at the scene with a gunshot wound to the head, police said. Three other men in the vehicle were taken to hospital with gunshot wounds: one suffered a wound to the chest, one was hit in the abdomen, and the other suffered a leg wound.
Police identified the wounded men as Paddy McFrinn, 18, Moustaffa Omar, 20, and Matthew Dale, 18. Police say they do not yet have a suspect in custody.