RIOT AFTERMATH : New Demonstrations, Looting Erupt in Toronto

New disturbances and looting broke out Tuesday night in the area of downtown Toronto where a six-hour riot shook the provincial capital the night before.

Youths tossed at least two fire bombs and looted a jewelry shop on Yonge Street. Police made 10 arrests, but no injuries were reported.

The Eaton Centre, an upscale shopping complex, closed early as hundreds of black and white youths faced off with riot police, some on horseback, on the shopping strip along Toronto’s main north-south artery.

Officials blamed Monday’s riot on hooligans hijacking a peaceful rally protesting racism, but black leaders said the outburst sprang from deep frustrations.

Monday’s protest was organized in reaction to the not guilty verdicts returned in the trial of four white Los Angeles police officers who had been videotaped beating a black motorist. The rally took on added significance when a Toronto undercover officer shot and killed a black man early Saturday.

More than 30 people faced charges stemming from Monday’s violence, ranging from theft to possession of stolen goods, assault and resisting arrest.

Earlier Tuesday, Brian Mulroney, Canada’s prime minister, rejected suggestions that the Toronto riot was a sign of things to come here.

Mulroney, pressed by opposition members of Parliament in Commons, denied that his government’s economic policies had created the social problems behind the riot. He also denied that racism is a serious problem in Canada.

He stressed that “by and large, there is a general agreement . . . that Canada has been . . . free from much of this.”

But Dudley Laws, leader of the Black Action Defense Council, said: “What happened yesterday was the frustration and hunger coming out. We have waited for the justice system to deal justly with our community, and they have failed.”

Whatever the cause, the rampage was likely to force Canadians to adjust their perception of themselves as being more civilized and law abiding than their neighbors in the United States.

Police said the man killed in Toronto was a drug dealer who threatened an officer with a knife after a lengthy chase. Raymond Lawrence, 22, was the eighth black person shot by Toronto police since 1988, and the fourth fatality.

“You cannot control people who are being brutalized and seeing their people being murdered from time to time by a so-called police force,” said Laws.