'We needed to do things now': Recent violence helped spur gang raids, Saunders says

The decision to carry out highly publicized raids on a west end street gang was in part influenced by an ongoing spate of violence that has drawn significant public ire, Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders said Friday. 

"We needed to do things now," Saunders explained in an interview with CBC's Metro Morning. "I think it is necessary — when people are motivated to shoot one another."

In the early morning hours on Thursday, some 800 officers from multiple police forces in the region executed 50 warrants that targeted the Five Point Generalz, a gang that's been tied to a slew of violent incidents over the years. 

The arrests come as police move to end of rash of shootings in the city, including one at a Scarborough playground that injured two young girls. 

According to Saunders, 70 people were arrested in the raids. At a news conference, however, Saunders admitted that "90 per cent" of those in custody will likely walk free. Indeed, a similar effort aimed at the gang 10 years ago resulted in 71 arrests but, as Saunders conceded, failed to stamp out the group's alleged criminal enterprise. 

The tactic of using these kinds of raids — considered by some critics to be more a public relations exercise than effective policing — often has unintended consequences within the affected communities.

Selwyn Pieters is a Toronto criminal lawyer who focuses on civil rights. He said that rounding up dozens of people, many of whom may have no connection to the gang's alleged criminality, generates more problems than it solves.

"They probably had 20 people targeted, and the rest are family members or friends who were found in the targeted locations," Pieters said of Thursday's raids, which were part of a months-long investigation dubbed Project Patton.

"Sometimes the police just arrest everyone who is found in the premises where they launch the search warrant."

These outcomes can exacerbate distrust of police and also led to messy court cases.

"It exaggerates the numbers and it leads to unwieldy prosecutions with no results," he said.

Saunders said that while the enforcement element of investigations can be less than ideal, police are sometimes left without a more effective option. That becomes especially true in scenarios like the current one, when the public demand action be taken to ease the perceptions that streets have become unsafe.

"Parents are concerned about the safety of their children in that environment, and we have to take measures. Whether we like it or not. It's necessary, that enforcement piece," he said.

He added, however, that his force is cognizant of the ripple effects heavy-handed enforcement can spawn. 

"Every action that we do in law enforcement has a social cost to it. Minimizing that social cost is a priority," Saunders explained.

"It's not what we do anymore, it's how we do what we do."