Constructing Difference in Public Spaces: Race, Class, and Gender as Interlocking Systems

Nearly two years ago, on April 5, 1994, in downtown Toronto, two patrons of a trendy coffee house called Just Desserts were assaulted in an armed robbery that left one, a young woman, dead and sent the other, an older man, to hospital. The slaying of Vivi Leimonis in the Just Desserts robbery provoked a massive outrage and grief, beginning with the demonstration outside the Cafe of about 200 citizens who demanded action, and continuing in a public display of grief at the victim’s funeral where thousands-some estimate as many as 3,500 people-turned out to mourn her death (Millar, 1994). The reporting of this crime contributed to its construction as a shared public event, with graphic layouts of the restaurant and sketches of the approximate location of perpetrators and victims, and intimate details xing both the time and space of where the robbers entered and when they left.