CP24: Toronto's Breaking News

It took a mere two hours for Toronto to record its first homicide of 2011.

New Year celebrations were in fact still in full swing when Brian Takahashi, 20, was stabbed to death outside a bar near Bathurst and Queen streets, right in the heart of downtown Toronto.

Two weeks later Sgt Ryan Russell, a married father and 11-year veteran of the Toronto Police Force, was nearing the end of his shift when a barefooted man stole a snowplow near Avenue Road and Parliament Street and took off on a two-hour rampage through the city.

Russell was standing outside his cruiser firing at the runaway vehicle as it careened into him at full speed, fatally pinning him against his cruiser around 6 a.m.

It was a shocking and violent beginning to a year that has turned out to be anything but as Toronto records its lowest homicide rate since 1986.

With days left in the year, Toronto has so far recorded 44 homicides.

That's down from 62 in 2010 and 80 in 2005, which was dubbed the ‘Year of the Gun' for a number of brazen shootings, including the Boxing Day slaying of a 15-year-old bystander outside the Eaton Centre.

"It was very dark days back then. There was a tremendous amount of fear and concern and people were afraid of walking in some neighbourhoods regardless of whether it was daytime or nighttime," Michael Thompson, a city councillor who was serving his first year in office at the time, told CP24.com in recent interview. "There was a view that anyone could be at risk at any given time and back then, that was probably fair."

The crime rate has been in decline across Canada since 1991, suggesting reduced bloodshed in the city may just be part of a wider trend, but Thompson doesn't see it that way.

A fierce anti-violence advocate, Thompson thinks the city is finally starting to see the impact of several programs put in place in the wake of widespread gun violence during the mid 2000s, including a city-wide community safety plan and a police task force on guns and gangs.

Even little things have helped "change the culture," Thompson said, offering up school breakfast programs, library improvements, youth drop-in centres and affordable housing initiatives in his Scarborough-Centre riding as examples.

"It really is about creating a cocktail for success. We have focused on education, we have demanded a higher standard from every member of our society and we have made sure we have role models demonstrating that it is better to take a slow route to success than a fast route that will lead to failure and it's making a difference," he said. "Many years ago I would hear from young people who would say they would rather engage in (illicit) short-term activities, make a little money and have a little bit of life, though a dangerous one. You don't hear that as much anymore."

Of the 44 homicides so far this year, 26 were shootings, six were stabbings and the remaining 12 were classified as other. The police division with the highest number of occurrences is 31 Division, bounded by Steeles Avenue to the north, Lawrence Avenue to the south, the Humber River to the west and Keele Street to the east. It listed eight homicides followed by Scarborough's 43 Division with four.

Community policing cited