{"id":801765,"date":"2026-07-14T17:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T17:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/801765\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T17:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T17:41:09","slug":"salsa-on-st-clair-shooting-brad-bradford-slams-police-remarks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/801765\/","title":{"rendered":"Salsa on St. Clair shooting: Brad Bradford slams police remarks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayoral candidate Brad Bradford promises action on gun violence and says he would sit on the police board if he were elected. <\/p>\n

Mayoral candidate Brad Bradford is criticizing a top Toronto police official for categorizing the city as \u201cextremely safe\u201d in remarks that were made mere hours after a deadly shooting at the Salsa on St. Clair festival over the weekend. <\/p>\n

Deputy Chief Frank Barredo told reporters on Saturday that Toronto remains \u201cone of the safest cities in the world\u201d despite the brazen shooting that killed two people and injured five others earlier that night. <\/p>\n

At a news conference on Tuesday, Bradford slammed the remarks as \u201ctone deaf\u201d as he took issue with the way city officials, including police brass, responded to the shooting. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was watching the news conference like every other Torontonian and I thought it was appalling to come out and say that things are extremely safe minutes after we have had a mass shooting on St. Clair (Avenue),\u201d Bradford said. <\/p>\n

Baredo told reporters on Saturday night that while Toronto is \u201cextremely safe,\u201d it is \u201cnot immune to some of the things that happen globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deputy chief went on to describe the Salsa on St. Clair shooting as \u201ctragic and very concerning\u201d but suggested that police had \u201ctalented and trained people dealing with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, Bradford said that the comments were simply \u201cthe wrong message\u201d to convey moments after thousands of Torontonians had to run to safety when gunfire erupted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the wrong message and I don\u2019t agree with that and that is not how people feel,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need leadership whether it is at the Toronto police or city hall or any of our agencies that recognize that people don\u2019t feel safe in Toronto and telling them what to think is not the right response.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were three separate shootings in Toronto over the weekend, including the violence along St. Clair Avenue. <\/p>\n

During a news conference on Monday<\/a>, Police Chief Myron Demkiw noted that shootings in Toronto are still down 26 per cent compared to this time last year.<\/p>\n

Denkiw, however, acknowledged that when \u201ca brazen shooting occurs in a public setting it understandably shakes the sense of safety and security that Torontonians expect and deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then went on to explain that statistics \u201cdon\u2019t mean that much\u201d in the wake of violence similar to what the city witnessed this weekend. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt really doesn\u2019t speak to the heart of the matters, which is how people feel. And it\u2019s very important for us to acknowledge that a weekend like this shakes our city,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s people who have lost loved ones. There are people who are injured in ways that are going to affect them for the rest of their lives. And at that moment, the statistics don\u2019t mean that much. What matters is how people feel and what we do to restore the sense of safety and security.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part Bradford said that he believes the response from police and city hall officials following the shooting has been \u201cdisingenuous\u201d and has relied too heavily on numbers that don\u2019t tell the full story. <\/p>\n

Bradford also suggested that the political leadership at city hall \u201chides behind their numbers instead of standing behind their work,\u201d though he did not cite specific examples.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than a dozen people were shot in Toronto this weekend, three of them are dead, and the message to the people who ran for their lives, who were shot, to the folks caught up in the stampede of panic was look at the numbers,\u201d Bradford said Tuesday. \u201cI am not here to debate numbers with anybody. I am glad that shootings are going down – the numbers should be zero \u2013 but people can\u2019t conduct their lives according to statistics. Torontonians don\u2019t live in a spreadsheet of numbers. Nobody is checking the dashboard before they walk out the door with their kid. They ask one simple question: do I feel safe?\u201d<\/p>\n

No arrests have been made following the Saturday night shooting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayoral candidate Brad Bradford promises action on gun violence and says he would sit on the police board…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[712,49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-801765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}