Incidents during Caribana

Incidents during Caribana, now renamed Scotiabank Toronto Caribbean Carnival, became especially chronic in the 1990s, though it has continued into later decades.
Organizers have long disassociated themselves from the violence that often flares up, during the festival. Said Lennox Farrell in 1992: "We as a board abhor any kind of violence whatsoever. If violence occurs outside a Blue Jays game, it is not ever associated with the Blue Jays game. We wonder why in the mind of the press... that shooting has become associated with Caribana." Organizers typified them as a "macho lot intent on destroying the occasion."
Incidents and reaction
For the first decades of the event, things went smoothly. In a positive review of their Olympic Island performances one night, the Star reported on the "happy nature of the crowd", in spite of significant rain and power outages. As one first year organizer put it: "In the Caribbean, 200,000 people dance through the streets and nothing happens. And we do it every year. What's surprising about 8,000 doing it here?"
1985
Aug. 5, 1985: A police officer is stabbed and another hit with a beer bottle as violence breaks out among a large crowd during Caribana celebrations on the Toronto Islands.
1992
In 1992, a man was shot in the lower left back, and an hour later, 30 shots were fired in a tree-lined park, with a number of youths seen running from the area. Combined with three stabbings earlier in the day, the parade was shut down at 8:30 pm (two-and-a-half-hours after the scheduled end time), with six floats remaining on the route. The next evening, police seized a cache of weapons from a warehouse used as a dance hall, and three people were shot outside a reggae party. Both events called themselves "Caribana parties", neither were. Board member Russell Charter commented that: "It is not the violence that has hurt us. It is the way that these have been reported. Our work could not be made more difficult."
On the Tuesday after that year's parade, police suggested the parade be split into two. Deputy Chief Charles Maywood relayed the Metropolitan Toronto Police's suggestions, which included limiting the numbers of parade participants, and using barricades to keep crowds off the route. During a break in the 1992 parade, a lack of barriers meant a crush of people headed up the route, to where they thought the parade might be. Organizers found most the suggestions too premature to consider, but they had been asking for more barricades repeatedly.
1993
On July 28, a 29-year-old jumped off a Caribana cruise boat at 11 pm, telling friends that he would meet them on shore at Ontario Place. The Trillium, the boat they were on, was about 300 feet (100 metres) from shore. Police recovered his body on the 30th. The victim's mother was hurt by speculation about his sobriety.
While there were 60 case of heat exhaustion, the only one arrest was made, after an adult assaulted a teen with a baseball bat. Another man was stabbed in the finger. When barrier dropped at one point, the crowd helped lift them back up.
1996
Aug. 3, 1996: Elrick Christian, 23, is shot and killed and three others, including a nurse visiting from Britain, are wounded during the Caribana parade. Three men are also arrested on weapons-related charges after a volley of shots are fired in Marilyn Bell Park, beside the parade route.
2011
A man died in a 2011 shooting, while the woman he was with suffered multiple gunshot wounds. putting her in critical condition. Another man was hospitalized after the bullet grazed his eyebrow.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu