Toronto Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying a car seen fleeing the murder at Crossroads plaza on Saturday.
A black Lexus SUV was seen “driving aggressively away from the scene in the area of 2625 Weston Road at approximately 3:40 p.m.” The police ask for anyone with information or dashcam footage to contact the investigators.
The police also identified the victim: Mathio Youkhanna, 24, of Toronto.
The Humber River Pals (and about 30 volunteers) cleaned up the Humber River Valley around Lions Park today, in their sixth outing of the year.
The BIA has announced that they’ll be hosting Winterfest from November 19–21. There will be Holiday installations, ice sculptures, music, a talent show, and more.
The Weston and Mount Dennis Public Libraries (among others) are offering free Presto cards while quantities last.
Presto cards are $6 if purchased elsewhere.
A man was killed yesterday in a brazen daylight shooting yesterday. It happened at about 3:45 p.m. in the Crossroads plaza near the 401.
According to CP24, the killing happened near the Tim Horton’s. The man was shot in his car and pronounced dead at the scene.
It was the third fatal shooting of the day in Toronto.
Police are asking for witnesses to come forward.
I’m going to ask you to do something a bit hard: to recognize that in an argument, both parties can be wrong.
This week, some community members started organizing against the supportive housing LOFT announced on Church Street. They put flyers on street posts and in mailboxes (including my own).
The flyers said that “crime, drugs, theft, property damage, low income, [and] prostitution” are problems in the community—and that “the former Humber River Regional hospital is turning 5 houses on Church St. into rooming/halfway houses for profit”.
As far as I can tell, little of that is accurate. They’re not going to be “rooming” (for profit) or “halfway houses” (for former criminals). They are “supportive housing for outgoing patients facing mental health challenges”, according to Debora Jesus, from LOFT.
Nor are they likely for profit. They are owned by the hospital, and LOFT is a charity, not a business. I’m not a lawyer, but this seems impossible. (And I’ll leave it to you to decide whether Weston has a large problem with petty crime. I don’t think so.)
But LOFT and the HRH don’t come out of this blameless.
I don’t think they did enough consultation, or sought opinions from far enough around the community.
I’m far from a good barometer, but I do try to keep attuned to what’s going on in Weston. I didn’t hear about LOFT’s “information session” (notably, not a consultation) until after it had passed.
I wasn’t the only one. Several members of the Weston Village Neighbours group didn’t know about it, and MPP Faisal Hassan wrote a letter to the CEO of LOFT saying he would have hoped to have been included. He wasn’t.
He also wrote “I … urge you to have broad community consultations and to involve local residents and elected officials such as myself.”
LOFT, for their part, says that they met with the WVRA and Frances Nunziata, and circulated flyers in a 3-block radius.
They also say, however, that “there are no further in-person meetings planned”.
This sort of stuff isn’t rocket science. I’m in favour of supportive housing, but LOFT should have known—or been told—that Weston gets quite enough “information” and not enough consultation from developers, Metrolinx, and, yes, the Humber River Regional Hospital. (Which announced years ago that they would be selling the property until, whoops, community members told them that they legally couldn’t.)
Go do the Egyptian, breakdance, or throw water balloons! The Google Streetview car is in town!