Twenty-six years ago, a staff inspector by the name of Julian Fantino — future Toronto police chief — sat in a small committee room and delivered a slew of explosive race-based crime statistics focused on the Jane-Finch neighbourhood. Fantino, then head of 31 Division, told North York’s committee on community, race and ethnic relations that, while blacks made up 6 per cent of the Jane-Finch population, they accounted for 82 per cent of robberies and muggings, 55 per cent of purse-snatchings and 51 per cent of drug offences in the previous year.
1989