Another Murder in Riverdale

Murder in Riverdale for the Toronto Sun

Riverdale residents were feeling more than a little uneasy a day after father of two Hou Chang Mao was killed by a stray bullet at an east Chinatown supermarket.
While it appeared business had returned to normal today, many out and about on Gerrard St. E. were thinking about the grim reality that if a 47-year-old grocer can be gunned down while stacking oranges then nobody is safe.
“It can happen anywhere and at any time of day,” Phillip Chung said as he left the bustling Fu Yao Supermarket, a block east of Broadview Ave.
Chung said he shops at the grocery store a couple of times a week and he couldn’t help but think it could just as easily have been him who was killed Thursday.
“Are you taking a chance now just being out on the street?” the 52-year-old wondered.
Mao, an employee at the supermarket, was working at the produce bins on the crowded sidewalk when Toronto Police say a running gun battle erupted across the street just after 6 p.m. The newcomer to Canada was the only one shot. Mao was hit in the stomach and died soon after.
Those working in the busy neighbourhood watched the horror unfold from their shops and could barely believe what was happening as terrified people ran for their lives.
“I heard bang, bang, bang, bang,” said a young woman who was working at a furniture store and did not want her name used. “I knew right away that it was gun shots.”

When the block along Gerrard St. E. — from Broadview to Boulton Aves. — was re-opened late this morning, Mao’s work gloves still lay on a blood-stained matt at the store entrance. And baskets of groceries lay in the aisles, hastily dropped by shoppers.
The owner of the market and his staff refused to talk about the city’s third murder of the year as they opened the store and customers began to trickle back inside.
Mao lived with his children — his daughter Yun Yam, 18, and son Zuo Xi, 23 — near Gerrard and Pape Aves.
“They’re shattered,” Homicide Det.-Sgt Pauline Gray said, adding the daughter just joined her dad and brother in Canada a couple months ago.
Gray said police have surveillance video from the area and it’s only a matter of time until the gunmen are identified.
“I’ve got you on camera. Somewhere, somehow, in the hundreds of hours (of video) we’re about to look at, we’ll find you,” she said.
Police are looking for two black men seen fleeing in a silver car with a shiny, silver, round grill. They believe the pair are either witnesses or were the targets.
Mao is the second innocent bystander to be slain by a stray bullet in less than a week. John O’Keefe, 42, was killed last Saturday on Yonge St.
Owners of neighbouring businesses remembered Mao as a hard-working man who recently helped hang decorative banners along Gerrard St. E. for the holiday season.
“Everyone knew him, he was a very nice guy,” said bookstore owner William Chiu.
He and other area businessmen are concerned the violence could damage east Chinatown’s reputation.
“I don’t want people to think this is a bad community,” said Chiu. “This is a wonderful community.”
Mayor David Miller and other local politicians visited the neighbourhood and urged others to do the same, pointing out the grocer’s death was an isolated incident and that Riverdale is one of the safest areas of the city.
But at least one longtime area resident disagreed.
“I think they are all in denial,” Deborah Lamb, 53, said. “We have a great neighbourhood. But people shouldn’t keep saying that we should just carry on, that everyone should come to (east) Chinatown and Riverdale, that everything is fine.”
She pointed out Eric Boateng, 21, was gunned down Oct. 21 after visiting a friend at the Don Jail. And an 18-year-old was shot by police in Riverdale Park on Halloween.
“I think it’s time people woke up and realized the extent of what’s happening here,” Lamb said.
— With files by Tom Godfrey and Rob Lamberti
chris.doucette@sunmedia.ca

NEWS FLASHES

Starting off the new year, Victor Avenue experiences more action. A small alarm fire took place on Sunday afternoon around 1:30 p.m. No injuries and the dog is rescued by Toronto’s fine firefighters!

In addition to that—-witnessed on the street today, SOMEONE WITH A PARKING PERMIT that does not appear to live here. NOPE, he was going to work at Bridgepoint and has a permit to park on our street. 7F

Where have things ended up on this issue? And where is the trusty little parking enforcer when you need them?

Oldest Resident on Victor Avenue Passes Away – Rose Stangel

Rose Stangel who was born in Slovenia and lived since 1940, on Victor Avenue at #40, passed away January 3, 2008.  Her son in law said she moved there in 1940 when his late wife was 2.

Rose was 97 years old and was active up to the last day of her life. The last time I saw her, she tread gingerly but determinedly up the stairs at 38 Victor, before Christmas, to make a delivery. I lived across the street from her for 29 years and while I never spoke much to her, she would wave at me from the front porch. As neighbours do, I would watch her comings and goings. I would watch her water her plants with an old galvanized pail. I would watch her cut her lawn and be most indignant if someone offered to help her. Every Sunday she dressed up and went to church. Every night I could see the light in the front bedroom on the second floor where she would watch TV. Her daughter who lives in Norland would visit regularly and take her shopping. Sometimes her nephew would come and take her for a ride. I often ran into Rose shopping at the No Frills at the end of the street.

Her daughter said she wanted to live in her house and refused to leave. It is wonderful when someone who is 97 can do that to the end. She had a stroke – that was the fire truck on January 3 on the street and died shortly after in the hospital.

I will miss not seeing that light on at night and knowing she was well.

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Death Notice from the Toronto Star
STANGEL, Rose (nee Mausser) Peacefully on January 3, 2008 at St. Michael’s Hospital, at the age of 97. Beloved wife of the late August. Loving mother of Lillian and husband Leif Marley. Dear aunt of Dori and Alfred Samide, Elli and Valde Seits, Walter and Ann Samide, Agnes Petschauer, Dora and Albrecht Reitmayer, Sophie and Philip Groblacher, and several great-nieces and nephews. Friends may visit at the Rosar-Morrison Funeral Home and Chapel, 467 Sherbourne Street (south of Wellesley) on Sunday, January 6, 2008 from 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. Parish prayers at 8 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Monday at 10 a.m. at St. Ann’s Church (Degrassi and Gerrard). Interment Holy Cross Cemetery

Victor Avenue experiences BREAK IN

Just a word of warning-on Dec 31st at about 12:43, an Victor Avenue home was broken into. Thanks to our neighbours on Simpson Ave. there was a speedy response from the police, sniffer dogs and other concerned citizens.

Remember to lock your doors, set your alarm and keep an eye out when you know that your neighbours may be out of town.

Another Shooting but by Police this time

Man dies in police shooting

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CARLOS OSORIO/THE TORONTO STAR

Police cordoned off Riverdale Park after a man was fatally shot during a confrontation with officers there on Oct. 31, 2007.

Nov 01, 2007 07:36 AM

Emma Reilly
Staff Reporter

Toronto police shot a man to death in last night in one of two incidents that sent gunshot victims to hospital.

According to the province’s Special Investigations Unit, the man was shot in Riverdale Park as two police officers moved in to arrest two robbery suspects.

In a statement released this morning, the SIU said the man became involved in an altercation with one of the officers before he was shot.

The man, believed to be in his 20s, was taken to St. Michael’s hospital, where he died from his injuries.

Several people were taken into police custody, but it was not immediately clear whether they were witnesses or suspects.

The SIU is a civilian agency that investigates incidents involving police that result in serious injury, death or allegations of sexual assault.

The Riverdale shooting was the first of two in the city last night.

Just before midnight, a 22-year-old man was shot in the stomach at the Paradiso restaurant on Bloor St. near Ossington Ave.

In that case, police say the suspect entered the restaurant through the back door and fired three or four shots at the victim before fleeing.

The victim was taken to hospital in serious condition.

Investigators say no witnesses saw the suspect enter the restaurant, and that no bullet casings were found at the shooting scene.

– With files from Justin Piercy and Noor Javed

Don Jail

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

•

The current Don Jail building
Canadian Prisons
Don Jail
Location:	Toronto, Ontario
Status:	Operational
Classification:	Short Term (Remand)
Capacity:	550
Opened:	1858 (current facility completed in 1865 with later additions)
Closed:
Managed by:	Province of Ontario

The Toronto Jail (also known by the nickname The Don, or in the media as the The Don Jail for clarity) is a provincial jail for remanded offenders in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Riverdale neighbourhood on Gerrard Street East near its intersection with Broadview Avenue. It gets its nickname for the nearby Don River. A likely reason for the popular use of the “Don” nickname is that this jail was the fourth to be known as the Toronto Jail.

The Toronto Jail was built between 1862 and 1865 (predating Canadian Confederation by two years) with most of the current jail facilities being built in the 1950s, although a jail has stood on the site since 1858. Designed by architect William Thomas in 1852, its distinctive façade in the Italianate style with a pedimented central pavilion and vermiculated columns flanking the main entrance portico is one of the architectural treasures of the city and one of very few pre-Confederation (1867) structures that remains intact in Toronto. For example, it is over thirty years older than Toronto’s Romanesque Old City Hall.

However, owing to its sturdy construction, its interior has gone largely unchanged in the last fifty years as renovations would be both difficult and expensive, even in an empty facility. As such, it is considered badly outdated as a prison facility. Originally constructed to house 275 prisoners, its “rated capacity” is now 550, and its average prisoner load is about 620. In addition, as a “short-term” jail, it was not designed with adequate visitor facilities, exercise areas, telephones, lawyer meeting rooms, showers, or even laundry facilities. However, the average stay is 30-90 days, and many prisoners are kept there for months. Many attempts have been made to close it as politicians, international human rights organizations, prisoner advocate groups and even prison guards have decried its overcrowding and inadequate facilities. However, despite several attempts to close the facility, it remains open primarily to deal with the large number of remand prisoners awaiting trial. It is often overburdened by a large number of arrested persons awaiting arraignment.

The original Don Jail building, now out of service

Courts have taken judicial notice of the deplorable conditions in “The Don” and judge Richard Schneider set a precedent of crediting persons serving time in the facility awaiting trial with three days for every day spent in the facility. The judge noted that the prison no longer met the minimum standards set by the United Nations. These conditions were also brought to light by a controversial article in the Toronto Star in which a reporter was smuggled into the prison by a sympathetic Member of Provincial Parliament, Dave Levac, MPP. Mr. Levac faced censure for bringing in the reporter, although as an MPP he had a right to free access to the facility.

It should be noted that the prison is only for remand prisoners, and it does not hold any persons actually found guilty of an offence.

The jail was the subject of the first ever television news report on the CBC Television English network when the Boyd Gang, a notorious group of bank robbers, broke out of the facility for the second time. The news anchor was future Bonanza star, Lorne Greene.

Before capital punishment was abolished in Canada, the Don was the site of a number of hangings. Starting with the execution of John Boyd in January 1908, hangings at the Don took place in an indoor chamber, which was a converted washroom, at the northeast corner of the old building. Previously, condemned men had been hanged on an outdoor scaffold in the jail yard. The indoor facility was seen as an improvement because outdoor executions were quasi-public – at the hanging of Fred Lee Rice in 1905, crowds had lined surrounding rooftops to see something of the spectacle – and because the condemned didn’t have to walk as far.

The best-known Canadian hangmen, such as John Radclive, Arthur Ellis and Camille Blanchard, hanged men at the Don at various times. The Toronto-based hangman Samuel Edwards, who worked during the Depression, carried out his first execution at the Don, in July, 1931.

26 men were hanged on the Don’s indoor gallows. The jail saw three double hangings: Roy Hotrum and William McFadden in August, 1921; Leonard Jackson and Steven Suchan in December, 1952; Ronald Turpin and Arthur Lucas on 11 December 1962. Turpin and Lucas had each been convicted in separate murder cases, and their executions were Canada’s last.

The jail is currently owned by Bridgepoint Health, which are retrofitting it to become part of the hospital. During the renovations human remains were found as part of an archaelogical assesment.

For the movie Cocktail (1988), starring Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown, the rotunda in the old section of the jail was redressed as an upscale New York nightclub.

___________________________
Last Escape 1989

Murder – Simpson and Broadview

Three Articles below

Mid-afternoon shooting leaves man dead in east-end

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A man in his 20s is dead after being shot to death Sunday afternoon in Toronto’s east-end.

Homicide detectives are on the scene at Simpson Avenue, near Broadview Avenue and Dundas Street, where the shooting happened just after 4 p.m.

Paramedics rushed to the scene and tried to revive the man but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police are releasing very few details on the murder but are asking for help from witnesses who might have seen the shooting occur.

The area has been closed off as a result of the police investigation. Investigators are sweeping the area for a male suspect.

RIME: 21-YEAR-OLD BECOMES CITY’S 70TH HOMICIDE VICTIM

Man fatally shot in brazen daylight attack

Globe and Mail

KAREN HOWLETT

October 22, 2007

TORONTO — A 21-year-old man became Toronto’s 70th homicide victim yesterday after he was gunned down in broad daylight on a quiet residential street, the apparent target of a planned ambush by several suspects who remain at large.

The brazen attack near Broadview Avenue and Gerrard Street took place at 4 p.m., just as the unidentified victim was leaving the Don Jail, where he had been visiting an inmate. He was returning to his parked car a short distance away when he was approached by several men, Inspector Bernadette Button of Toronto Police told reporters.

“A foot chase ensued and several shots were fired,” she said. The victim collapsed in the driveway between two houses on Simpson Avenue.

Homicide detectives remained tight-lipped last night as a citywide search got under way for the suspects, who escaped on foot. The police would not divulge any information about the victim or the suspects, or what prompted the attack that has left residents in shock.

By late yesterday afternoon, the leafy street had been transformed into a busy crime scene. Yellow police tape cordoned off houses near where the victim had been shot, seven orange pylons covered shell casings from bullets strewn on the street and police cars and ambulances lined the street. Police escorted bewildered-looking congregants emerging from services at St. John’s Presbyterian Church on the corner to their cars.

Insp. Button said police were appealing for help from witnesses who might have seen the shooting. Dozens of police officers were combing through the streets and interviewing neighbours.

They were also poring over tape from a surveillance camera at a nearby fish store and had blocked off most of the streets near Broadview and Gerrard as part of the manhunt.

Craig Jenkins, a resident of Simpson Avenue, was one of the first people on the scene after the shooting. He said in an interview that he was at home watching a movie when his doorbell rang. He had heard a series of loud bangs but never imagined it was from a hail of bullets. When he opened the door, he found his next-door neighbour frantically yelling, “Someone’s been shot by my house. I need you to call 911.”

When Mr. Jenkins ran outside, he saw the man “slumped up against the back fence,” he said.

Paramedics arrived shortly after he called 911, but they could not revive the man. Mr. Jenkins said the man was unresponsive and bleeding from his ear. He had a bullet wound in his chest.

Residents of the area said they were shocked that their neighbourhood now resembled others in the city where gunfire is all too common. While gun crime overall has dropped significantly over the past two years in Toronto, reflective in part of several vigorous anti-gang sweeps, gun homicides have swung upward once again. This comes at a time when crime generally – and murder in particular – has been slowly but steadily declining across Canada.

Constance, a long-time resident who declined to give her last name, was just returning from church when she saw the police cars in her neighbourhood. “This is very sad,” she said. “It’s very strange for this neighbourhood.”

Don Jail shooting victim in Creba raids

Man shot dead as he leaves Don Jail

A 21-year-old man was ambushed by a group of men and shot dead as he left the Don Jail in the city’s east end yesterday afternoon.

Oct 22, 2007 11:30 AM

Betsy Powell
Staff Reporter
The man shot to death outside the Toronto’s Don Jail on Sunday was one of 25 people swept up in the Jane Creba murder investigation last year.

Eric Boateng, 21, had left the facility at Broadview Ave. and Gerrard St.E. on Sunday just before 4 p.m. and was returning to his car when he was confronted outside by a man and shot. He collapsed on a nearby quiet residential street and died.

Boateng pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking in Old City Hall provincial court on Aug. 7 and was sentenced to the equivalent of 28 months in jail.

He was released from custody at that time for time served, plus put on probation for a year.

He was originally charged with conspiracy to traffic in firearms. Boateng and 24 others were arrested on June 13, 2006, in a series of police raids after the fatal shooting of Jane Creba. They were not among the seven others charged in the Dec. 26, 2005 death of the Grade 10 Riverdale Collegiate student.

Witnesses described the gunman as black, in his 20s, medium build, between 5-foot-8 and 6 feet, wearing a black bomber-style jacket that was puffy and shiny, dark baggy pants, and a dark hat. He was last seen running south on Hamilton St., south of Gerrard St.E.

A small, dark SUV was also seen in the area at the time of the shooting, though police don’t know if it was involved in the incident.

Boateng is Toronto’s 70th homicide victim of 2007, one more than the 69 people killed in the city last year.

Rumor – Wal Mart wants to open at Pape/Eastern area

Rumor has it that Wal Mart want to open a store in the Pape/Eastern area. There was a meeting somewhere in the area last night to discuss this proposal. Apparently Paula Fletcher’s office seems to know a lot about this proposal and there is supposed to be a website dedicated to this whole proposed development. I think Wal Mart would have a devastating impact on all the new development of stores along Queen street. We already have the mega Canadian Tire store at Leslie/Lakeshore.

If anyone knows anything about this development let the street know. I will follow up with Paula Fletcher.

Thanks

42 Victor Avenue

Violet and Paul live here.

Violet was born in this house so she might rival her next door neighbour Rose for the longest resident on the street. At least her family has lived her longer than Rose has.