Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot advocated for a “holistic approach” that treats gun violence as a “public health crisis” rather than a law-enforcement problem as she met with Toronto Mayor John Tory in Toronto on Monday.
The two mayors sat down for about 90 minutes inside Tory’s office to discuss a number of issues of mutual concern, including gun violence.
“I think what we have done right is view our epidemic of gun violence as a public health crisis and not just one where we put forward law enforcement first and only,” Lightfoot told reporters following the meeting with Tory. “We have brought a lot of resources to the issue of gun violence and looking at what the root causes are. Clearly, law enforcement continues to play a role but we have also brought our parks, our schools, our libraries and we have leaned heavily into the faith community and community-based organizations to help us look at what are the challenges the communities are facing and how we use the resources and the bully pulpit of the mayor’s office to focus like a laser beam on those communities that are most in need.”