Gangland - Toronto update

Gun violence has reared its ugly head once again. Toronto Police are investigating four shootings, one fatal, that happened in less than 24 hours.

* A young man is dead and homicide detectives are searching for suspects after shots rang out in a high rise on St. Dennis Drive, near Don Mills and Eglinton, around 2am Saturday. 18-year-old victim was rushed to hospital without vital signs where he was later pronounced dead. His name hasn’t been released. Investigators say the shooting happened on the second floor of the building, either in the hallway or the stairwell.

* About two hours earlier, bullets flew in the Finch and Victoria Park area and a man was hit in the arm on Chester Le Boulevard. The Toronto Police Emergency Task Force was sent to the area after receiving a call about gunfire just before midnight. Detectives say the victim, in his early 20s, isn’t cooperating with them. A 23-year-old man was shot on the same street on Tuesday night and a suspect in that incident turned himself in to police the next day.

* Gunfire also erupted around the dinner hour in another part of Scarborough Friday. Someone fired shots into two houses and one into a car on Whiteleas Avenue, in the Tapscott Road and Finch Avenue East area around 6pm. A bullet narrowly missed a father who was washing dishes with his nine-year-old daughter when the projectile came through their kitchen window. “Gunshots were firing," Michael Williams recalled. "Almost shot near my daughter. That's all I can really tell you. Can't tell you I recognize these guys, but they need to be off the streets." Police say two men standing on the street got into an argument with a number of men in parked cars. A front seat passenger in one of the vehicles – an older model, brown, Japanese-style car with rust that was missing the front licence plate – opened fire on the street.

* And the ETF responded to yet another gunshots call, this time at an address on Keele Street, near Sheppard, just before noon Friday.Shots were fired in an apartment complex and a bullet went through the floor of one apartment and into a woman’s unit below. Fortunately, she wasn’t hit.Heavily-armed officers searched the building and took three suspects into custody, who are now facing weapons charges.

This blog urges that if you have any information that could help police in any of these investigations, call Crime Stoppers at (416) 222-TIPS.