racingmeridian.com

My building is all over the news after Toronto’s 34^th murder victim of 2010 ended up under my apartment window, in the parking lot, Saturday afternoon. I did not hear or see a thing, despite the fact I was at home and typing the Meridian at the time of the incident. I did look out my balcony when the parking lot was overrun by police, including a large cube van labeled Forensics.

There was allot of blood, thick and clotted, and I mistakenly assumed someone had been hit by a car. A shoe was about five metres from the mass of blood.

It’s an image I won’t soon forget.

Life in the Big Smoke.

The last murder in my building occurred in the apartment above mine.

I‘ve had my apartment broken into, and regularly walk by and joke with drug dealers.

My neighborhood was the subject of a scathing series of articles after a young man was tortured for hours before being killed in a dispute over drug money. Not a single person called the cops. And, no, I didn’t hear a thing and, yes, if I had I would have taken the 60 seconds to dial 911 and tell the po-po.

So why don’t I move?

I like my neighborhood. It’s full of immigrants and I thoroughly enjoy their stories and their Canadian experience. Real people tell stories you would never read in the Toronto Star.  It’s crazy and funny and out of control and completely off the radar for most Canucks.

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A prayer; God Bless the young man who felt his life ebb away while lying on hot pavement on a lazy Saturday afternoon; a terrible loss, a sad and lonely way to exit this coil…the young man deserved better…