Summerhill is a neighbourhood in central Toronto. As the name indicates, the neighbourhood is centered around Summerhill Ave and Yonge Street. The Summerhill neighbourhood is primarily filled with single family homes and several small and medium-sized businesses. Summerhill stretches south to the railway tracks and north to Farnham Avenue. It goes west to Avenue Road and east to Balfour Park and the Rosehill Reservoir. Some consider the area just outside these boundaries as part of the Summerhill neighbourhood as well. When discussing crime, it’s important to note that while breaking crime down by neighbourhood provides a good indicator about where crime is taking place, these neighbourhoods are not isolated from one another. For the most part they are imaginary boundaries, not actual hard borders, that divide areas. This means that criminals can easily cross streets and enter other neighbourhoods. Because of this, it is important to look at the surrounding area as a whole in additional to the neighbourhood crime rate. Our neighbourhood crime reports page has information on a number of different areas for comparison purposes. As far as the crime rate in Summerhill goes, between Avenue Road and Yonge Street and between the railway tracks and Woodlawn Avenue West, there is an average of 21.3 instances of property crime per 1000 people living and working in the neighbourhood. West of Yonge Street, there is an average of 2.67 crimes against people and 15.88 crimes against property per 1000. In July 2011, a woman was found dead in the bathtub of her home on Summerhill Gardens. It was not immediately known how the woman died or how long she had been in the bathtub, but according to the Toronto Star “Toronto police say they are treating the death as suspicious.” In January 2010, a man was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting two women on New Year’s morning. He assaulted one woman at St. Clair subway station (north of the Summerhill neighbourhood) and one at Summerhill station. From 680 News Toronto:
Investigators report in both instances, he allegedly followed the women as they left the stations, and then pushed them to the ground, assaulting them before fleeing.
In 2009, a armed robbery in a Summerhill Avenue pharmacy left two people in the hospital. From the Toronto Star:
A male suspect with a handgun entered Marshall’s Pharmacy on 412 Summerhill Ave. around 10:30 a.m. One of the pharmacists, a man, was slashed on the arm by broken glass after the suspect forcibly pulled instead of pushing the glass door, which was shattered by the impact. A female pharmacist suffered a broken leg after falling. Police say there was no struggle between the suspect and the victims and no shots were fired. Police have not been able to confirm what the suspect wanted, or what was taken from the pharmacy. The suspect fled across a railway track near Moore Park.
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