Toronto serial killer shows (again) that there’s no pride in policing

The story of alleged serial murderer Bruce MacArthur has been stunning revelation after stunning revelation. And the voices of those most affected: the community that warned for years that someone was preying on men in and around Toronto’s Village, have been the most damning.

The murders date back to [we don’t actually yet know], and charges have been laid in connection to murders that happened between 2010 and 2016/2017. The charges are all in connection with the murders of Selim Esen, Andrew Kinsman, Majeed “Hamid” Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi and Dean Lisowick.

Xtra reports that Skanda Navaratnam, who has been missing since 2010, dated MacArthur. Their relationship, as reported by Arshy Mann, was by various measures, serious. MacArthur has not been charged in Navaratnam’s death. The Globe and Mail reported that MacArthur also dated Kayhan.

Police have been roundly criticized for their inaction: for not having taken these deaths seriously enough, for not making the necessary connections, for not listening to the community and for downplaying the possibility that there was a serial killer.

Many, many people are asking: why didn’t police take this seriously?

The answer is simple enough: police choose where to put their resources. Queer, racialized or homeless men are not high on their list of priorities. Compare this to the intensity that Toronto Police have approached the murder of Barry and Honey Sherman: in six weeks, they have gathered 4 terabytes of security camera footage, 348 “investigative actions” are currently being pursued and 127 witness statements have been gathered and “this number continues to grow each day,” according to Toronto Police. These stats are from a press conference called ostensibly to announce how many resources have been dedicated to that investigation. It has taken six weeks for Toronto Police to determine that they’re investigating a homicide.

The contrast between how these investigations have been completed is stunning. Clearly, there is a difference in value placed on some people’s lives, and that difference is intimately tied to why vulnerable populations are more at risk for harm. Marginalized populations can go missing without raising any official alarm bells, as we see time and time against across Canada. The campaign to stop the persistence of murdered and missing Indigenous women is one example of this. More acutely, Robert Pickton preyed on the most marginalized women in Vancouver and was determined to have murdered 48 of them.

One of MacArthur’s victims, Dean Lisowick, hadn’t even been reported missing.

The fact that police didn’t follow what are obvious connections: former relationships, for example, is the most puzzling and damning part of what we know about the case so far. Could lives have been saved if police had talked to people and made the connection that there was a common thread between some of the victims? Or if they had talked to people about what they were afraid of being true, would they have been able to piece together a puzzle?

Over the timeline of the Pickton case, memorials were organized as far back as 1991. Indeed, February 14 remains a day that marks the women who have been murdered or are missing. After 1991, there were three years where there were spikes in the number of missing women: 1995, 1998 and 2001. In 1998, Vancouver police said that they doubted a serial killer was behind the disappearances.

It wouldn’t be until 2002 that Pickton was charged with the first murders.

The similarities in these cases, so far, are frustrating and tragic. The fact remains that queer, racialized or homeless lives are worth less to police. That has both created tragic conditions for the men who MacArthur has killed and near certainly given MacArthur the protection and cover he’s needed to be able to kill so many people. One recent article went so far as to call MacArthur “jovial” in a headline.

In 2016, Black Lives Matter freaked a lot of people out when they stopped the Pride Parade for a few minutes, demanding several reforms to Pride Toronto. The one that got the most attention was to stop allowing Toronto Police to be in the parade.

The mainstream opinions were swift and mostly anti-BLM. From CBC Opinions: “I’m black and gay. Black Lives Matter Toronto doesn’t speak for me”; from Maclean’s: “The police saved my queer, Muslim life. And they can be allies for others, too”; Sue-Ann Levy literally argued that removing police from Pride caused this: “Beverage sales were also down by nearly half compared to last year and the government grants were also half those provided in 2016.” One CTV journalist asked why BLM-TO doesn’t plan on protesting the Santa Claus Parade.

In Now Magazine, Janaya Khan responded to some of the criticism that BLM-Toronto got: “They are fostering a narrative wherein calling for an end to police floats in Pride is considered “discriminatory,” completely overlooking the reality of privilege and power granted to police.”

The fact is that BLM-Toronto was right. Their assessment, that police don’t care about marginalized people, was true then and is true now.

The Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention has issued a community action bulletin condemning the way that these cases were treated, and recommending an external investigation into why police failed to act on these deaths until a white man, Andrew Kinsman, went missing.

My Facebook friends who were angry about BLM-Toronto’s actions at Pride were mostly white. Their arguments mostly revolved around the notion that police presence makes things safer. As many of us argued then, I ask: safer for whom? Until Toronto Police ensures the safety of marginalized people, whether queer, racialized, and or homeless, there can be no trust in them. They deserve no laurels.

Unfortunately, signs point to the MacArthur case getting much worse before we get the full scope of the indifference that aided MacArthur to commit so many heinous acts.