A loss of innocence?

More then a week later its interesting to see Toronto's boxing day shooting still the talk of the news. It's certain to become the watershed crime event of 2005. But why has this one touched such a nerve? I can't deny that this one even feels different to me. I happened to walk by the exact scene of the shooting a mere hour before it went down - I was just up the street in HMV on Yonge when the shots rang out. My first thoughts leaving the store and seeing what was happening - was to run the fuck home and get my camera. Not sure how this would weave into my documentary story, but I knew street visuals this good don't pop up too often. It probably wasn't till a few days later while editing The Toronto Rap Project when it hit me -- has one of the core themes of the doc changed? I went into making the documentary because I felt Toronto was getting a bad rap, that the media was over-sensationalizing the gun crime in the city and giving everybody the sense they were not safe anymore. At that time, I certainly felt very safe in the city. It's probably wrong to say it -- but maybe I felt detached from the gun violence because it wasn't happening in my neighborhood - but in hoods' that felt worlds away to me. It's ironic that a few times during filming the documentary I mention "not feeling the need to dawn my bulletproof vest." After boxing day, I'm not so sure anymore.