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Over the years, friends of Jason Campbell have tried to preserve his memory using the metal railing where it forms a cross and stands amid the tiny yards of Ardwick.
Campbell lived in the public housing complex near Finch and Islington Aves., and died there after he was hit in a drive-by shooting in 2002. He was 17.
Almost immediately, a makeshift shrine was erected on the spot where he collapsed steps from his mother's townhouse. Illuminated by red candles, the original memorial included a red ball cap, a red bandana, flowers and a small Bible opened to the 23rd Psalm.
Red is the colour associated with the Bloods gang and in 2005 police arrested members reputed to belong to the Ardwick Bloods Crew.
Since Campbell died six years ago, the shrine has gone up and down and continues to be refreshed after Toronto police have, on occasion, removed it, believing the still-unsolved homicide was gang-related and the shrine a way to "mark turf."
Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti wants it down permanently. Today he plans to ask Etobicoke York Community Council to support a plan to get rid of memorials dedicated to "drug dealers and gang members." While sympathetic to those who use public space to pay homage to victims of crashes and other tragedies, Mammoliti said yesterday he has no sympathy for those who "terrorized our streets."
In Berkeley, Calif., city officials recently decided to review street shrines "case by case and remove them whenever it's determined there is a potential threat to public safety," the San Francisco Chronicle reported earlier this month.
The move came after a 42-year-old woman was shot by a stray bullet while taking out her garbage. The bullet was fired from a gun belonging to "mourners" at a shrine marking a double homicide that happened in September, the paper said.
There are other ways gang members pay homage to "fallen soldiers." It is seen as paying respects to someone considered part of their alternative family, gang experts say.
Tattoos and the letters R.I.P written across T-shirts with oversized photos of homicide victims is a trend seen in Toronto and traced back to the early `90s and U.S. west coast gang tradition.
Other rituals imported from the U.S. include pouring out liquor after someone is killed – a practice made famous in late rapper Tupac Shakur's song, "Pour out a little liquor." The video for the song shows young men standing around a tombstone pouring liquor onto the ground.
In the Internet age, there are also many online shrines that gang members use to cope with grief, posting tributes on such sites as YouTube and Facebook.
But when the memorials move outdoors and into public space, officials get nervous. Police, who interpret them as a sign that the gang runs the community, would be delighted if others, such as Toronto Community Housing Corp., were ordered to take them down.
When officers removed Campbell's shrine in Ardwick, it was replaced by graffiti that read "Kill the Pigs" and "23-31 Die," a reference to two nearby Toronto police divisions.
But defence lawyer Ernest Guiste, who represented young men accused of being members of the Bloods, questions any such move.
"There are more serious, more pressing concerns in the community and the city than that and I would urge Mr. Mammoliti to focus his attention on those."
