The bleeding hearts of the Toronto Star would have you believe that yesterday's dawn raid on the black gangs of North Toronto (which netted 95 perps, guns, drugs, and dirty money) were bad because they scared the children.

Here's a different perspective on yesterday's police raids.

It comes from Andrene, who is 10 years old and experienced the first minutes at the end of police guns after officers burst into her bedroom just before dawn.

She was there with her mother, Sharon Mitchell, 32, and baby sister, Alexandra, 2. Down the hall in another bedroom were her cousin, Joanna, 9, and Joanna's mother, Charmaine Osbourne, 30.

"This morning, the police officers, they came and they were kicking down the doors," said Andrene in a solemn voice. "And they came in with their guns and they were pointing at my sister and me.

"My sister got scared and she was crying."

Alexandra was trying to coax Boss, a little white poodle-mix, to play. But the dog whined. The fur on its left side was burned to the skin.

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She is angry that police had children at gunpoint. A supervisor for the Toronto school board, Osbourne said police should have known better than to do that, especially when she believes their surveillance would have shown children lived there.

Osbourne and her daughter, Joanna, hit the floor at the first blast, but police ordered them back up on the bed. "They had both of us on the bed with high-powered rifles pointed at us," said Osbourne, claiming they were held at gunpoint for about half an hour before being allowed to wait outside the house.

"My daughter was crying like there was no end to it. She was there crying and they had a gun on her.

I would be far more worried about having my criminal brother in the house with my little girls than having the cops come in. No children were harmed yesterday, but Toronto has seen little kids caught in gang crossfire many times over the past couple of years, some even losing their lives. As a matter of fact, child services should take those kids away and charge the mother with endangerment just for letting a gang-banger in the house with them.

As for little Andrene, let me tell you a little story...

It was 1984 and I was eight years old when we heard the banging and the boot steps that seemed to come from everywhere. It was winter, and it had darkened early. I was in the living room, in front of the bay window through which there was only blackness and the reflection of the TV, watching Three's Company. My father was in the next room, on the phone. He looked out the window, slammed down the phone, and ran out to the living room. I was grabbed unceremoniously from the La-Z-Boy and herded to my bedroom just as the pounding began on our front door. "Stay here" he said. "Don't you dare leave this room!"

The noise coming from the upper duplex above us was deafening. Yelling, a scream, more boots. I hid under the bed, terrified. What was going on? Who was at the door? What was happening to my daddy? Soon the door was opened by my mother, and our doberman was shoved in with me, the door closed again. Valentine (the dog) crawled under the bed with me (classic misconception that dobies are scary animals - really they're big pussies), shaking and whimpering. I put my arm around her and we cowered there for an hour, until the noise stopped. Until Daddy came back to get me.

I've just told you a story from an 8 year old's perspective - scared, unsure, clutching her dog, wondering if her daddy would ever come back. That little girl was me. Now I will tell you the adult version of what happened, which was explained to me that night and that I have never forgotten. Robert Mingo, our upstairs neighbor, with his two brothers Melvin and Nelson, had stolen $68 million of stocks and bonds from Merrill Lynch. They hid the suitcases in our shared garage, in an old car my father had up on blocks. That night, after thorough investigation, our duplex was descended on by the Montreal SWAT team, who surrounded the building, guns pointed at every door and window. They busted into Mingo's upstairs, ordering everyone, including Robert's heavily pregnant wife, face down on the ground. The team ransacked the house, and all were arrested. They came to our door and dragged my father outside, down into the garage, to present him with his suddenly valuable car, and to do preliminary questioning. Obviously he had no idea what was going on, and he was free to return to his terrified family (and dog).

I learned a very valuable lesson that night. I learned that if you commit crimes, bad things happen. You might be a nice person (the Mingo's were extremely nice people, and used to have barbecues with us), you might be friendly and family oriented. But bad things will still happen if you break the law. The cops came to my house, heavily armed. I was afraid. But ever since that night, I have not feared them. Once it was explained who they were and what they were looking for, I knew I was in no danger from them. Twice more in my life I have been in situation where the SWAT team were involved, and I was never afraid. I merely did what I could to protect myself should there be shooting (get in a room without windows, stay low), and I knew that when it was over the bad guys would be gone.

I hope Andrene realizes that they weren't coming for her - they meant her no harm. She was just in a dangerous place at a dangerous time, but that the police are not to blame. Her mother and her uncle are to blame for putting her in that situation. The police are responsible for getting her out of it. Good for them.

Labels: Drugs, Gangs, Jamaicans, Law Enforcement, Merrill Lynch, Mingo, Police, Rexdale, SWAT, Toronto

We need a leader with a zero tolerance mindset. We need someone who will ignore the political correctness of the wailing race pimps and welfare banshees, and kick some criminal ass in Toronto. We don't need more basketball courts, we don't need more after school programs. We need more reform schools, jails and deportations.

Two teenagers are dead and a third is clinging to life after an apparent early-morning police pursuit that ended with a horrific crash in Rexdale yesterday.

A fifteen year old in a stolen Acura, chased by the cops, panics. He loses control, and all hell breaks loose. I wouldn't have thought much of this story at all (sorry, but anything that happens up in that ghetto goes in one ear and out the other now) except that we drove past the cordoned area yesterday. The four of us (Kathy, Mr. Right and our driver) all suspected that it was a shooting. We weren't that far off, considering the cops that chased the kid were in the area responding to a gun call.

The Acura smashed into two eastbound taxis in the intersection at Finch Ave. W. and then crashed into a light pole.

One of the cabs had two young passengers in the backseat, Bliss said. A 16-year-old girl was pronounced dead at the scene and her friend, 17, was taken to Sunnybrook hospital in critical condition.

"It's not looking good," Bliss said of the surviving girl.

The lone occupant of the Acura -- which ended up wrapped around a lamp post -- died in hospital about five hours after the collision.

What a waste. Now the cops are under investigation over whether they should have let the kid go. Are you kidding? Yes, I realize that there are times when officers must make the call as to let a perp go or not, but this chase literally took moments. The SIU will find them without fault, but the press and the race pimps are already screaming for blood.

However, the deaths had some area residents questioning whether police should chase motorists who refuse to stop.

A 54-year-old woman speculated the Acura driver probably "panicked" when he saw the cops on his heels.

"They should have just let him go. Tomorrow is another day," said the woman, who has lived in the neighbourhood for several years. "Now look what's happened, such innocent loss of life."

Why don't we let all criminals go? Jane/Finch would be such a nice quiet neighborhood if it weren't for all those meddling cops trying to keep the peace. Yes, let's let car thieves, rapists, murderers and drug dealers go.

I have a better idea: Let's just fence off Rexdale and go back in 20 years when the place has killed itself off. Then we can build condos and let the cops back in.

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In other news, the wailing and grieving over Jordan Manners, the 15 year old grade 9 student who was shot in his Toronto school a little over a week ago, takes an interesting twist. Seems the young darling wasn't such a saint after all.

Hours before Manners was shot he had told Miles the world would be better off without police. One week before that, the same teacher recalled Manners flashing a wad of bills in class – one of many that earned him the nickname "Stackz."

And in early May, Miles had called Loreen Small for the first time to warn her that Jordan was heading down the wrong path – professing admiration for violent behaviour at Jefferys and disrupting classes.

Manners had already seen guns pointed at him "a couple of times" and could distinguish the different types, his teacher said.

Uh huh. I'm shocked, I tell ya. Shocked.

It is, of course, the school system's fault. It has nothing to do with Toronto's black gangs, lack of fathers in the black community, lawlessness in the aforementioned neighborhood or anything like that. It's Whitey's fault. Always. Cry me a long black river.

But Miles thought the 15-year-old could make it through high school. The head of Jefferys' special education department, he had worked intimately with Jordan from the day the Grade 9 student arrived – with a warning attached from Brookview Middle School that he was defiant and out of control. Miles stressed this week, though, that Manners didn't deserve this, that the school had failed him.

Miles said he has been too sickened by Jordan's death to return to teaching at Jefferys.

"The reason I'm taking this so hard is because it was preventable," he said from his home. "I can't walk into that school right now. I can't think of a lesson plan. A lesson in what? How to bring people back from the dead?"

Um, I dunno, how about a lesson in how gangs are no way to live, that easy money comes with a much higher price than taxes, and how maybe it isn't all Whitey's fault and that you should take some goddam responsibility for how your life turns out (or doesn't, in this case)? Maybe that would be a good lesson to teach these kids, because they obviously aren't learning it at home or in the 'hood.

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Instead of a Giuliani, Toronto has a mayor who believes in blaming the gun (perhaps he'll also blame the Acura) instead of the hand holding it and pulling the trigger. It can all be solved with more social programs, which we'd have if that miser Stephen Harper would just give us one penny back from the GST. The word misguided does not even begin to describe that logic.

Labels: David Miller, Giuliani, Police, Rexdale, Toronto, Youth Crime