Crime at YCC #42 

The condominium complex is plagued with crime. The complex is so large and there are so many renters moving in and out—often at night—that it is impossible to keep track of everyone.

Petty stuff
The three buildings suffer from vandalized cars, graffiti and vandalism in the hallways, the odd fire started in the hallways and garbage thrown over the balconies. Frequent false fire alarms cost the corporation over $50,000 a year.

The residents normally ignore the drug users in the hallways and staircases and in return the drug users do not threaten them. As one resident told a reporter, it’s a required live and let live attitude.

More serious crime
Residents have had their keys stolen from them when they open the lobby doors and there has been petty theft in the common areas.

Hoodlums
It is well known that a street gang was operating in this condominium complex and in the three condos just to the north of them along with other small-time criminals.

Drug dealing and prostitution is conducted in some of the units. A few residents and the security guards have been threatened by having guns pointed at them.

Over the last several years the security guards have made 300 hundred arrests on the property. Several have been injured on the job. Some time ago, the security office was shot-up when guards were inside.

On Sunday 31 March 2013, a stolen car raced into the basement parking-garage with over 20 police cars in hot pursuit. The driver made his good his escape.

It took the police hours before they were given access to view footage from the condo’s CCTV cameras.

Bloodshed
A 24-year-old Somali, Abdikadir Khan was gunned down in the early morning hours of Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 320 Dixon Rd. He lay in the apartment complex's stairwell for eleven hours before the police were called later that afternoon. He was pronounced dead on the scene. Police believe he was targeted.

On the morning of 08 July 2012, police responded to call for the sound of gunshots at 320 Dixon Rd. Ahmed Yusuf shot at a group of men with a handgun. All shots missed the men.

On 04 February 2013, Toronto police arrested a 21-year-old man after shots were fired around 4 a.m. Police and the canine unit were called in to track down the suspect. He was eventually arrested near Wincott Park, less than a kilometre away. A gun was also recovered.

On 06 February 2013, an 18-year-old man was stabbed several times in a 320 Dixon Road stairwell.

Early morning on 21 May 2013, shots rang out in the 17th-floor hallway at 320 Dixon Rd. A man in his 20s suffered a gunshot wound to his leg in what was described later as "friendly fire". Several days after the shooting, the Toronto media learned the holder of the video that allegedly shows Rob Ford smoking crack also lives on the 17th floor of 320 Dixon Rd.

Condo owner Radouane Jaghtite, who moved to Canada from Morocco nearly two decades ago, has lived in the Dixon high-rise since 2009, paying $47,000 for a two-bedroom unit whose ceiling was stained brown with marijuana smoke. Mr. Jaghtite, 36, gutted the apartment, installing hardwood floors, a drop ceiling with pot lights, new kitchen cupboards and a Jacuzzi tub.

He says his sister cried when she learned he was moving with his wife to Dixon. She was worried for their safety and their investment. “You have to start somewhere,” Mr. Jaghtite said.

The couple is saving for a house near family in Maple, north of Toronto. They don’t want to raise their boys in Dixon.

“You see 13-year-old girls holding a bottle of alcohol,” notes Amina Allaoui, Mr. Jaghtite’s wife. Her husband adds: “In some apartments, you can see 30 people sitting around and they’re smoking marijuana. I’m telling you this is not young people. This is old people. Who is going to look after the kids? The kids look after themselves.”

Dixon City Bloods
It was only after the police raid on Thursday 13 June 2013, that the public learnt that a street gang called the Dixon City Bloods operated out of 320 Dixon Road.


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