From last Wednesday to Monday, Toronto saw at least one shooting each day — a chilling series of events that included the deaths of two people: 22-year-old Jovane Clarke and 34-year-old Awad Hurre.

Six of the seven shootings took place in an area of the city police call the northwest corridor — which includes a large part of North York and some parts of Etobicoke and York, bordered by Bayview Ave. to the east and the Humber river to the west. The seventh took place in Regent Park on Monday.

The attacks have injured communities, roused advocates, and left police searching for answers.

“When something like that happens, it shakes up the community,” said Keaton Austin, an Etobicoke pastor who advocates for safety of young people. “It makes the community get in more trouble; it’s more violated. The community is traumatized.”

The string of events was particularly unnerving to police because of the public nature of some of the incidents.

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Like the 2012 Eaton Centre shooting deaths of Ahmed Hassan and Nixon Nirmalendran, which drew the city’s attention toward gun violence, the shooting that killed Clarke took place inside a busy mall. Many shoppers and staff at Sheridan Mall in North York witnessed the attack, which took place around 6:30 p.m. on Thursday.

The shooting death of Hurre just two days later bore similarities to Clarke’s death that police said they could not ignore.

Both victims were targeted for unknown reasons. Both were killed in public spaces with lots of people around. The two victims lived in the same apartment building, where Hurre was found dead.

In each case, police said they were looking for four suspects.

On Saturday Const. Allyson Douglas-Cook called Clarke’s killing, along with two non-fatal shootings that occurred Wednesday and Friday, “concerning.”

“I don’t want to say that it is a threat to public safety,” she said. “It is a concern.”

Const. Caroline de Kloet said Monday the message is the same, and called on communities to assist with investigations.

In the wake of the attacks, Austin thinks more must be done to improve the security and safety of the areas where the shootings took place.

“The Sheridan Mall is not the Eaton Centre,” Austin said. “A bunch of community housing, a bunch of people who are not that well off live in that area. If it was downtown, there would be more outcry.”

Part of that, he said, means prioritizing security guards in malls, apartment buildings, and other busy spaces in that area of the city. (Sheridan Mall management did not discuss security details but said there was security in place at the location.)

Austin also called gun access a major problem.

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“How are they getting the firearms?” he said Monday. “I think it should be way more stiff penalties with the firearms.”

Homicide data made public by Toronto police show that, while 26 per cent of total Toronto homicides occurred in the northwest corridor between 2007 and 2016, 34 per cent of shooting homicides occurred in that area over the same period of time — 110 shooting homicides out of 163 for the area.

Toronto police were unable to immediately comment on the specific shooting homicide statistics for the northwest corridor on Monday.

“We do know that area is a concern,” de Kloet said.