Toronto still 'a safe city' even after string of violent crimes, says Mayor John Tory

Toronto is still a "safe city" even after a series offatal shootings and stabbings over the last several days, Mayor John Tory told reporters Wednesday afternoon.

"That is borne out by any of the statistics you look at,notwithstandingthe veryconcerning and deeply troubling events of the last week or so. There are other weeks that wecould point to during the course of thisvery same year, 2015, where none of those things happened."

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Tory made the commentsin response to a questionduringa news conference at city hall after a meeting with the federal Minister of Infrastructure, Amarjeet Sohi.

"It's deeply troubling to me that those things happened in our city in a short period of time and that they happened ever at all in any period of time," the mayor said.

Tory was addressing a spate of violent crimethat began on Fridayafternoon with a drive-by shooting on Peter Street north of King Street West that killed one man, and a seemingly-random stabbing in the city's underground PATH system that has left a woman fighting for her life in hospital.

The mayhemcontinued into Friday night with a fatal shooting near Parkway Forest and SheppardAvenue East, and into the weekend with a double shooting in Rexdale that sent two men to hospital Sunday night.

'Gang-related'

Tuesday night, cancer researcher and Ryersonadjunct professorMark Ernsting was stabbed to death in the GerrardStreet and YongeStreet area in what police describe as a random "robbery gone wrong."

Tory described most of the attacks as "gang-related," and expressed confidence that "we have a chief who understands that this is a serious problem."

Butthe city does have"an issue with the deployment of police officers," Tory said.

"You can see from the [KPMG] study that came out ... how much time of police officers is taken up on calls that don't have to do with fighting violent crime ... and it would really help us if we had that degree of flexibility."

Tory was referring to theKPMG study, released last week, that was commissioned by the Toronto Police Services Board in 2014. The reportsuggested several reformsaimed at cutting the Toronto police budget anddeployingpolice officers more efficiently.

Tory said he was looking forward to budget discussions that would "allow us to have more police officers in more cars, on bikes, on foot."

But he had harsh words for Coun. Giorgio Mammolitiwho talked Tuesday about bringing in Canadian troops to help Toronto police fight violent crime.

"I just don't like the use of the word 'crisis' or things that createthat air by saying, 'call in the army.'" Tory said.