04 January 2009

Toronto's first murder of 2009

The victim, whose friend last night said was 36, died after several shots were fired at him in the parking lot of a two-storey strip plaza on Milvan Dr., north of Finch Ave., shortly after 3 a.m.

Only willing to identify him as Johnnie, his friend of two months said he lived in Mississauga and was an auto mechanic. His family, who she said live in Iraq, “don’t know this has happened.

A friend of the victim suffered minor injuries after being hit with a gun, following an argument in which the leader of the suspect group insulted Johnnie with a homosexual slur, a witness said.

Grinton described the three men wanted in the shooting as black of West Indian descent, South Asian of West Indian descent and Asian. He said surveillance cameras were being checked to determine if the shooting was filmed.
And it's not the first time this particular venue has been in the news...
A widowed Brampton mother of four was shot dead at a nightclub which was at the same mall in April 2005. Livvette Olivea Miller, 26, also known as Livvette Moore, was killed in the Prestige Palace club while six others were wounded in an apparent gang gun battle.
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RELATED: They're off to a very good start
(image via reader r&r)
"Toronto police maintain a web page that shows year-to-date shootings. As of Dec. 15, there have been 236 shooting incidents in the city, an increase of 18 percent over 2007. The number of victims is up to 336, about a 42 percent increase over 2007."
Gotta get cracking to beat last year.

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LAST WORD: The sad roll-call of 2008

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