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HUNTER: When will we hit our murderous breaking point?

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It might have been the execution murder of rookie cop Eddie Byrne.

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Byrne was just 22 years old when he was murdered in his patrol car by henchmen for crack kingpin Howard “Pappy” Mason on Feb. 26, 1988.

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Maybe it was the senseless murder of a tourist named Brian Watkins, a 22-year-old Mormon visiting New York with his family for the U.S. Open.

Watkins was stabbed to death by teenage thugs as he tried to protect his family on the steps of a subway in Flushing.

Gabriel Magalhaes.
Gabriel Magalhaes. Photo by GoFundMe /GoFundMe

Or perhaps it was the death of a thousand cuts. Or the thousands of other senseless murders that plagued New York from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.

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In Toronto, there is fear in the air. Some of it justified, some of it not so much but no matter where you stand, something has changed: Murder is now chillingly random.

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A young woman murdered with an icepick on a subway platform, a homeless man beaten and stabbed to death weeks before Christmas, and now, 16-year-old Gabriel Magalhaes.

LEGENDARY COP: Billy Gorta says any crime crackdown has to be political. MAUREEN GORTA
LEGENDARY COP: Billy Gorta says any crime crackdown has to be political. MAUREEN GORTA

The teen was sitting waiting for his train at Keele station, bothering no one when he was stabbed to death. Dead at 16.

Toronto is now at a crossroads. Sociologists and the city’s most comfortable residents can brush this off; indeed, they will try. But in the end, a 16-year-old boy with his whole life ahead of him is dead.

Billy Gorta was a police captain during New York’s darkest days. He is a longtime friend and colleague. He was one of the guys who helped wrestle crime and homicide to the ground in the Big Apple.

To Gorta, it really wasn’t one murder. It was the death of a thousand cuts that changed the state of play in New York.

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RANDOM: Brian Watkins was murdered on the steps of a NYC subway. NYPD
RANDOM: Brian Watkins was murdered on the steps of a NYC subway. NYPD

“Maybe the murders of Eddie Byrne and Watkins started it and brought attention to the problem,” he told me on Wednesday. “But really, it was the sheer volume.”

Volume indeed. New York was in the midst of a steep decline, the manufacturing jobs had gone, and the crack epidemic was reaching its crescendo. Kids were being killed by stray bullets, and bodega owners were being cut down in robberies gone awry.

The death tally in 1990: 2,245 murders, or six a day.

LIKE IT IS 2.0. THE TORONTO SUN
LIKE IT IS 2.0. THE TORONTO SUN

“Bill Bratton was named the police commissioner and he came in and said after about a week ‘this is a f****** mess. I’ve only been here a week and I’ve seen enough.’ Our job is to fight crime, not crunch numbers. Do something about it,” Gorta said.

Suddenly, New York had 8,000 new cops and Gorta was at the centre of a revolution in policing. The theory was called broken windows.

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The idea was that small, quality-of-life crimes like fare jumping and vandalism could eventually lead to murder. If you don’t patch up the broken window, the idea went, the rest of the windows will eventually get smashed out.

“But there was not a particular crime that changed it all. The best thing (then-New York mayor Rudy) Giuliani ever did though was hire Bratton. Bratton was the Oppenheimer of crime reduction.”

Torontonians are becoming increasingly weary of crime, be it on the TTC or on the street on a Tuesday afternoon.

Will the senseless murder of Gabriel Magalhaes change anything? Sadly, probably not. That might take the next one, the one after, or the one after that.

But it will come. When the livelihoods of politicians suddenly go on the line, there will be a call for change.

In the interim, know this: Lip service will not save your skin on election day.

[email protected]

@HunterTOSun

Comments

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.

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Article content

It might have been the execution murder of rookie cop Eddie Byrne.

Advertisement 2

Article content

Byrne was just 22 years old when he was murdered in his patrol car by henchmen for crack kingpin Howard “Pappy” Mason on Feb. 26, 1988.

Article content

Maybe it was the senseless murder of a tourist named Brian Watkins, a 22-year-old Mormon visiting New York with his family for the U.S. Open.

Watkins was stabbed to death by teenage thugs as he tried to protect his family on the steps of a subway in Flushing.

Gabriel Magalhaes.
Gabriel Magalhaes. Photo by GoFundMe /GoFundMe

Or perhaps it was the death of a thousand cuts. Or the thousands of other senseless murders that plagued New York from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.

Recommended video

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

In Toronto, there is fear in the air. Some of it justified, some of it not so much but no matter where you stand, something has changed: Murder is now chillingly random.

Article content

Advertisement 3

Article content

A young woman murdered with an icepick on a subway platform, a homeless man beaten and stabbed to death weeks before Christmas, and now, 16-year-old Gabriel Magalhaes.

LEGENDARY COP: Billy Gorta says any crime crackdown has to be political. MAUREEN GORTA
LEGENDARY COP: Billy Gorta says any crime crackdown has to be political. MAUREEN GORTA

The teen was sitting waiting for his train at Keele station, bothering no one when he was stabbed to death. Dead at 16.

Toronto is now at a crossroads. Sociologists and the city’s most comfortable residents can brush this off; indeed, they will try. But in the end, a 16-year-old boy with his whole life ahead of him is dead.

Billy Gorta was a police captain during New York’s darkest days. He is a longtime friend and colleague. He was one of the guys who helped wrestle crime and homicide to the ground in the Big Apple.

To Gorta, it really wasn’t one murder. It was the death of a thousand cuts that changed the state of play in New York.

Advertisement 4

Article content

RANDOM: Brian Watkins was murdered on the steps of a NYC subway. NYPD
RANDOM: Brian Watkins was murdered on the steps of a NYC subway. NYPD

“Maybe the murders of Eddie Byrne and Watkins started it and brought attention to the problem,” he told me on Wednesday. “But really, it was the sheer volume.”

Volume indeed. New York was in the midst of a steep decline, the manufacturing jobs had gone, and the crack epidemic was reaching its crescendo. Kids were being killed by stray bullets, and bodega owners were being cut down in robberies gone awry.

The death tally in 1990: 2,245 murders, or six a day.

LIKE IT IS 2.0. THE TORONTO SUN
LIKE IT IS 2.0. THE TORONTO SUN

“Bill Bratton was named the police commissioner and he came in and said after about a week ‘this is a f****** mess. I’ve only been here a week and I’ve seen enough.’ Our job is to fight crime, not crunch numbers. Do something about it,” Gorta said.

Suddenly, New York had 8,000 new cops and Gorta was at the centre of a revolution in policing. The theory was called broken windows.

Advertisement 5

Article content

The idea was that small, quality-of-life crimes like fare jumping and vandalism could eventually lead to murder. If you don’t patch up the broken window, the idea went, the rest of the windows will eventually get smashed out.

“But there was not a particular crime that changed it all. The best thing (then-New York mayor Rudy) Giuliani ever did though was hire Bratton. Bratton was the Oppenheimer of crime reduction.”

Torontonians are becoming increasingly weary of crime, be it on the TTC or on the street on a Tuesday afternoon.

Will the senseless murder of Gabriel Magalhaes change anything? Sadly, probably not. That might take the next one, the one after, or the one after that.

But it will come. When the livelihoods of politicians suddenly go on the line, there will be a call for change.

In the interim, know this: Lip service will not save your skin on election day.

[email protected]

@HunterTOSun

Comments

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.

Join the Conversation

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