Court appearances began Friday for many of the 106 people arrested in a series of sweeping raids aimed at dismantling street gangs in northwest Toronto.
Deputy Chief Tony Warr told a news conference that police expect to lay more than 1,000 charges for offences ranging from attempted murder to drug and firearms trafficking to membership in a criminal gang.
The pre-dawn raids on Thursday focused on an organization known as the Jamestown Crew, which operates throughout the GTA.
Warr said police are still looking for eight fugitives. Of those arrested, 72 are men, 24 are women and 10 are young offenders.
By midday Friday some 40 people had already appeared in court.
"This will give the community a sense of security and safety that has been lacking in the last few years," said Warr.
"The Jamestown Crew…have held this area in fear for a long, long time, and hopefully now that they've been taken out of the equation, taken right out of the picture, the community can get back to being the good and vibrant community it deserves to be."
Police Chief Bill Blair on Thursday commended his officers for carrying out the raid "with military precision."
More than 100 warrants were executed and no shots were fired, he said.
"Our officers went into houses and buildings where there are armed people who have demonstrated in the past they're willing to use firearms," he said.
"The leadership of the Jamestown Crew has been surgically removed from their community."
Cracked major gun pipeline, police say
Police also seized 20 firearms, including an AK-47 assault rifle and two MAC-10 automatic machine pistols. Several hundred thousand dollars in cash, four vehicles and 15 kilograms of cocaine were also seized.
Blair said police have cracked a major pipeline of illegal guns that are being smuggled into Toronto from the United States.
"We have identified the source of those guns and significant progress has been made in shutting down a pipeline of firearms that were being imported illegally into this country," said Blair.
Many forces
The raids involved about 600 police officers from several forces. They included the guns and gangs task force of the Toronto Police Services, the forces for Peel, York and Durham regions, the Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP. Officers also came from Brantford, Ont., Montreal and the United States.
So many officers were involved in the massive raid that extra vehicles had to be rented to transport them all.
Armed officers rode in the back of trucks, speeding through intersections that were blocked off by patrol officers.
Police were later seen checking the trunks of nearby vehicles for any other suspects.
They said many more charges are expected along and that they will be providing more details of the allegations.
'Everyone scared'
Residents of the neighbourhood said they've noticed an increase in gun violence even within the past two weeks.
"Everyone is scared," said Hassan Abtidon, the executive director of the Thistletown Community Services Unit in the heart of the area.
"To live here is very, very bad, I'm telling you. These gunshots, they never stop. They always continue. Even children will tell you, 'There's a gunshot, there's a gunshot.' It's very tough."
Abtidon said there was a period of relative calm in the past couple of years, "but now it come back again and we have no idea about the cause. Only the police know."