Check Against Delivery

Chief Myron Demkiw:

Good morning Chair, Board and members of the public.

I would like to also acknowledge the recent passing of prominent community leader and anti-gun advocate, Louis March.

Through his Zero Gun Violence Movement, Louis touched the lives of many young people and worked tirelessly to unite community partners - including the police - with the goal of eradicating gun violence in our city.

As a police leader, I deeply valued my relationship with Louis, which extended over many years. He was upfront, never hesitated to provide his viewpoint to help our community and guide our work as a police service.

He helped in the development of our gun and gang strategy framework and helped us to focus on a multi sectoral response with a public health lens in our efforts to eradicate gun violence.

He worked hard to bring many stakeholders together and he will be sorely missed by many.

I personally and on behalf of the Toronto Police Service, extend my deepest condolences to his family and to the many people who he impacted through his advocacy and commitment to our city.

As we committed to do, the Service is working on a multi-year hiring plan to bring long-term stability to the Service and to our capacity to respond when Torontonians need us most.

As of today, our response times to Priority 1 calls is 17.5 minutes. This is, in part, due to the fact that we have been able to continue to hire new recruits – and ensure we are able to keep our frontline staffed to respond to our city’s increasing amount of emergency calls for service.

We were able to graduate two classes of police constables this past year which has allowed us to strategically deploy to the frontline, and also build our supervisory capacity.

I am pleased to show you an example of some of the incredible work done by one of our newer recruits.

Watch a re-creation of what happened when one of our officers responded to a carjacking, just four months into his policing career, after a woman was threatened with a knife to hand over her car keys.

('This is TPS' video: https://youtu.be/DoCiD9Lpf1o)

The person arrested by our new officer is now facing robbery charges.

Earlier this week I was pleased to join the Premier of Ontario and the Solicitor General of Ontario, as the province announced a joint air support model that will benefit Toronto residents. The model involves Toronto Police partnering with the Ontario Provincial Police who will provide helicopter support to police operations across the city.

Equipped with the latest technology, the helicopters will help keep Toronto safe from violent carjackings, auto thefts, street racing and impaired driving, and will also assist with missing persons and other police operations, at no cost to the city.

In addition to this new air support, the Toronto Police Service has expanded the capacity of our Hold Up Squad to include carjacking investigations.

Like other jurisdictions, we have continued to see an increase in violent home invasions and carjackings.

To address this issue, we have a centralized unit investigating these occurrences city-wide. We are working with our police partners from the Greater Toronto Area to share intelligence and to disrupt the organized crime networks that are behind these crimes which threaten the safety and wellbeing of our community.

Over the last year, Toronto has experienced a 23 per cent decrease in auto thefts.

And while our Service has worked hard on investigations and recovered thousands of stolen vehicles, auto theft requires action and collaboration amongst all levels of government, private industries including insurance companies, vehicle manufacturers, port authorities and shipping companies to help disrupt the criminal entities who are behind these occurrences.  

To that end I want to thank Deputy Johnson for visiting the port of Montreal with the Solicitor General and police leaders to witness first-hand efforts to disrupt the flow of vehicles from Canada to the international criminal market. The scope and scale of this criminality yet again demonstrates the unique nature of policing Toronto and the reach criminal activity originating in our city has well beyond our borders.  

I now want to touch on our Gun Violence Strategy. We are taking a whole of service approach, including strategic deployment of resources.

Of note, shooting events in Toronto have increased by 58 per cent compared to last year. I will note that most of these shootings are firearm discharges where no injuries have been reported.

However, there have been 28 shooting deaths so far in 2024, compared to 16 last year and we know that communities across Toronto are deeply impacted by any and all gun violence in their neighborhoods and we are committed to doing everything we can to keep our city safe.

To this end, so far in 2024, the Toronto Police Service has seized 412 crime guns, made 578 arrests and laid a total of 2,590 firearms related charges and we remain focused on investigations and bringing those responsible to justice.

One notable arrest took place in late June when a 14-year-old was arrested and charged with two counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder.

It is very troubling when a young person makes the decision to pick up a firearm and pull the trigger. 

In fact, since last year, youth firearms arrests are up 75 per cent.

As of the same time last year, we had arrested 65 youth for firearms offences. So far this year we have already arrested 114 youths.

While we continue to work to get guns off the street, police, social agencies, school boards, NGO’s and all levels of government must work together to intervene long before a young person makes the decision to get involved in criminal activity.

A multi-disciplinary approach, with a public health lens, is at the core of our work with our partners to address gun violence. All stakeholders must do their part to prevent this violence.

On that front, our Gang Prevention Task Force, part of our Engage 416 initiative and Gang Exit Program, continues to work with youth, community members and to leverage local agencies, to help prevent and suppress gun violence and gang activity.

I also want to update you on hate crime arrests.

Since October 7, we have attended 1,556 suspected hate crime calls for service, an average 156 calls a month.

In June, we attended 171 hate crime calls. In July, we saw an over 30 per cent decrease, with 113 calls as of July 27. While this decrease is welcome, I do want to acknowledge that just this past week we have been reminded about the terrible impact these occurrences can have on our communities.

I want to reassure our communities again that the Toronto Police fully investigates every reported incident in an effort to hold those responsible accountable.

There have been 130 arrests and 314 hate crime occurrence related charges since October 7. Investigations continue on reported occurrences and communities will continue to see our visible uniform presence.

Anti-Semitism continues to account for more reported hate crimes than any other category. Of the 273 hate crimes so far in 2024, 45 per cent were anti-Semitic.

The most common charges are mischief, assault and uttering threats. 

Hate crime occurrences are up 55 per cent over the same period last year. 

I would now like to turn the mic over to Deputy Johnson.

Deputy Robert Johnson

I want to begin by reiterating that we know there are community concerns over recent incidents of mischief at places of worship and jewish schools.

I want to clarify that yesterday we responded to a fire at the Leo Baeck Day School. The fire originated in an exterior storage shed, which was being used by an under-housed individual for shelter. The fire and heat resulted in damage to the shed and also a window of the school.

The Hate Crime Unit has been consulted and there is no evidence at this time to suggest this incident was motivated by hate. This is an ongoing investigation, and we’ll update residents as soon as we can.

I am pleased to share that yesterday the Service released all hate crime data from 2018 to 2023 on our Public Safety Data Portal. The data, extracted from the Service’s Annual Hate Crime Statistical Reports, represents verified hate crimes as determined by the Hate Crime Unit.

The data is provided on a new dedicated Hate Crime Dashboard and as a downloadable open dataset to ensure easy access and visibility. While the data is currently released annually, the Service aims to increase the frequency of updates on the Data Portal.

In doing so, we are promoting transparency in hate crime data and trends, to ensure we work collaboratively and promote honest conversations about what strategies are needed to keep our communities safe.

Prior to launching the hate crime dashboard, we met with various Community Consultative Committees representing diverse groups across the city to get their feedback and to ensure the data being provided is what communities are seeking.

The under-reporting of hate crimes continues to be a challenge and in addition to the dashboard, we have  initiated a hate crime video series, a hate-motivated graffiti intake form, and a hate crime awareness campaign in collaboration with Crime Stoppers, all in an effort to increase awareness about hate crimes and encourage reporting to police.

I would now like to turn the mic over to Deputy Pogue with further updates:

Deputy Lauren Pogue

I am pleased to share that tomorrow we are launching an innovative, community-informed pilot program that elevates the Service’s approach to community safety by enhancing officer visibility. Communities most affected by gun violence have repeatedly indicated they support seeing a stronger police presence in their neighborhoods.

We are pleased to announce that ‘Project Magnify’ will operate in 14, 31 and 43 Divisions, as well as be used by our Public Safety Response Team. The project will see officers wearing lights on their uniforms for increased visibility to the public.

Our marked police vehicles will also have a feature available to officers to allow them to activate static red and blue lights on the roof top light bar to increase visibility.

Let me show you a short video to explain Project Magnify.

(Project Magnify Video: https://youtu.be/JknVlaan68o)

This enhanced visibility and presence serves as a deterrent to criminal activity, ensuring that communities can fully enjoy their surroundings and public spaces without fear of harm or other criminal activity.

They will also contribute to officer safety, making our members more visible to motorists, pedestrians and other officers.

Project Magnify will be a three-month pilot project, after which time member and community feedback will be assessed to determine whether this high-visibility initiative will be rolled out Service-wide.

I will now turn it over to Chief Information Officer Colin Stairs for further updates.

CIO Colin Stairs

I’d like to update you on the successful completion of phase one of the transition to Next Generation 9-1-1. Earlier this month, we moved to completely new software to manage our call-taking and dispatch, readying Canada’s largest and busiest communications center for the shift from analog to digital networks.

We receive more than 2 million calls a year and are now using computer-based applications, also known as softphones.

NG9-1-1 will enhance 9-1-1 service with new modern features.

I am very proud of the teamwork and professionalism of all involved.

There are no changes to how the public experiences 9-1-1 calls right away, but this infrastructure improvement has opened new pathways to innovation with call processing and wait times with the ability to respond to abandoned calls faster.

The next milestone will be reported in November of 2024.

I will also update you on the implementation of the Digital Officer rollout. We are using the Service smartphones to support Parking Enforcement Officers in responding to more than 200,000 annual calls for service and a million-and-a-half interactions with the Parking Enforcement dispatcher’s desk.

We have provided Parking Enforcement Officers with connected phones to help them do their jobs more efficiently and independently. I have a short video for you that says it better than I can:

(PEO Connected Officer video: https://youtu.be/X2CoNM54S7M)

By empowering PEOs with real-time access to critical information, they can now verify vehicle ownership, check for stolen vehicles, handle relocations, and contact complainants without burdening the dispatcher.

Integrating these connected devices streamlines interactions and also reduces the volume of calls.

On call volume, I am pleased to report that the online parking complaint form is showing great results with respect to call diversion. Parking complaints make up 20 per cent of our calls to the non-emergency line.

As a consequence of better design and better technology, the online reporting tool is now easier to use and Torontonians are using it more frequently. 

Use of Online Parking Enforcement Reports have gone from 44 per cent to 61 per cent online. Parking related calls to the non-emergency line have declined by 26 per cent since July 2023.

I will now turn it back to Chief Demkiw for his closing remarks.

Chief Myron Demkiw:

Before I conclude, I want to thank you, Chair Morgan, for joining us last Thursday as we hosted our Annual Caribbean Carnival Kick-Off Celebration at the Eastview Community Centre in Kempton Park. This year’s theme was “It Takes a Village to Raise a Child.”

The Service, in partnership with community members and various organizations, have been participating in this event since 1991.

I want to thank Laurette Jack and the staff at Eastview Community Center for their collaboration with this event and Rick Gosling from the Children’s Breakfast Club who started this initiative to help us build relationships between the Caribbean community and the Toronto Police Service.  I also want to thank all the dignitaries, Service members and community members in attendance, and most importantly, the children who made the event so special.

This concludes the Command’s monthly update. Thank you.