The Danzig Street shooting, or Danzig shooting, was a gang-related shooting that occurred on the evening of 16July 2012 at a block party on Danzig Street in the West Hill neighbourhood of Toronto, Canada. Rival gang members Folorunso Owusu, 17, and Nahom Tsegazab, 19, along with an unidentified third gunman, opened fire in a crowd of two hundred people. This resulted in the deaths of Joshua Yasay and Shyanne Charles, and the injury of twenty-four others (including two of the perpetrators), making it the worst mass shooting in Toronto.
A 2008 provincial report had warned of increasing trends in youth violence but key recommendations to stop at-risk youth from joining gangs had not been adopted. Around 2010 the West Hill-based Galloway Boys gang was re-forming, recruiting youths who obtained guns which they used in conflicts for control of the gang and territory. The block party, which began as a children's barbecue at a social-housing complex, was continued into the evening by some of these youths who attracted a crowd with a DJ and free alcohol. After a series of confrontations, threats escalated into the shooting.
Although initially believed to be the resumption of a 2003 gang war between the Galloway Boys and the Malvern Crew, it later became clear that the Danzig Street shooting was not part of a territorial dispute or retaliation for another incident but a disagreement between teenagers who then had a gunfight at a party. Police initially received few tips from frightened witnesses but were able to make two arrests that month; two additional arrests came following a reprisal shooting in September. The four young men convicted were aged 15 to 19 at the time of the shooting; two were minors and their names were withheld under the Youth Criminal Justice Act until they were sentenced as adults. Justice Ian Nordheimer said of the incident, "Ordinary persons do not understand how anyone, much less teenagers, can come not only to possess such weapons but to use them in such a brutal and indifferent way."
The incident, in conjunction with the Eaton Centre shooting six weeks earlier and a shooting in a Colorado movie theatre four days later, renewed debate on gun crime in urban areas. Despite falling national crime rates, a poll taken the following week showed that a majority of Canadians were in fear of "a violent crime wave". The shooting led the Toronto Police Service to develop new crime-prevention strategies for the Neighbourhood Officers Program, established to build community relationships in at-risk areas to gain information on local crime, making possible targeted crackdowns on gang activity and a dramatic reduction in shootings and other crimes. Police43 Division (which includes Danzig Street) reported no homicides the following year, in 2013.
Background The Galloway Boys ( G-Way) were one of the most well-known and violent criminal gangs in Toronto, their turf centered on the intersection of Galloway and Kingston Roads in the neighbourhood of West Hill. They raised fears of violence in the city's eastern district of Scarborough in 2003 and 2004 while battling with rival gang the Malvern Crew over territory for street drugs and prostitution. The deadly turf war resulted in Ontario's largest street-gang crackdown and prosecutions, with 75 arrests of alleged gang members on more than 600 criminal charges.
With the Galloway Boys' leadership incarcerated, there was a notable decrease in violent crime. However, many of those gang leaders had been sentenced to five- or seven-year jail terms; when they were released around 2010, they began mentoring youths recruited into the gang. The younger members obtained guns and used them in conflicts for control of the gang and territory, resulting in a string of shootings and killings in 2011 and 2012. From January to September2012 there was a 22percent increase in shooting incidents and a 41percent increase in shooting victims in the city compared to the same period in 2011.
Kingston–Galloway had been identified in 2004 as one of thirteen areas of poverty and substandard city services designated as priority investment neighbourhoods in Toronto's Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy. The plan sought to counter gang involvement and improve economic opportunities under a citizenship model of governance. It lost political support following the retirement of Mayor David Miller in 2010 and was effectively dismantled in early 2012.
In Toronto, blockos are a form of block party derived from a Caribbean practice of open-air social gatherings. They are held by neighbours and outreach workers, particularly during the city's warm, humid summers. These parties provide inexpensive entertainment for residents, with daytime activities focused on children and evening activities for youths and adults. Since the 1970s many blockos have been held each year at Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) developments without incident.
The 101-unit townhouse social housing complex at Danzig Street and Morningside Avenue is called Morningside Coronation by TCHC and D-Block by the young families who reside there. Alcohol is prohibited in common areas without a special-occasion permit. There is a strict no-gun policy: anyone caught with a gun is turned over to police, and tenants caught housing someone with a gun are evicted.
Event Block party A block party was organized at the Danzig Street housing complex for 15July 2012 by resident Shannon Longshaw, a 28-year-old mother of two, as an afternoon children's barbecue. Meanwhile, from 7July the Twitter account @2ToneShorty, linked to 19-year-old Galloway Boys member Nahom Tsegazab, had been promoting the gathering as a "Hennessy Block Party". The messages promised a live DJ and thirty bottles of Hennessy cognac on ice, free for all. Over the course of a week, more than two dozen open invitations were sent from the account and spread across social media as #hennessyblockparty. Some residents made Twitter posts expressing concerns over the potential for violence.
The party, which was delayed to Monday 16July due to a rainstorm, began in Longshaw's backyard at 2pm. Tenants provided food and children's activities, including face painting and an improvised water slide. Tsegazab handed out school supplies and basketballs. The children's party was to end at 5pm, but by then adults were already assembling in the parking lot, and the Galloway Boys "took ownership" of the block. By 7pm a crowd was gathering and alcohol was being consumed to loud hiphop music. An hour later there were Jaguars and Hummers parked around the block, marijuana smoke in the air, and more than two hundred people packing the complex's narrow internal lane (or laneway). Worried about the presence of people they did not know, some residents took their children inside their homes. One resident could not use the walkway without bumping into people, describing it as being like a jammed nightclub.
Several noise complaints were made to police, and bicycle patrols were dispatched, but the party was allowed to continue. According to Gene Jones, then-CEO of TCHC, the event had not been sanctioned by TCHC and should have ended before 9pm.
Provocations The crowd in the complex's lane was filling in when the Galloway Boys began "G-checking", confronting people they did not recognize and telling those from rival gang territories to leave. 18-year-old Shaquan Mesquito of Malvern, an alleged Malvern Crew member known as "Bam Bam", who had come to the party unarmed, was ordered to leave by Tsegazab's 15-year-old brother Naod. Naod threatened to shoot Mesquito if he did not leave immediately.
Angry at being forced to leave, Mesquito sent out a number of Twitter posts urging others to go on a killing spree and shoot up the party. Shortly after 9pm, Nahom Tsegazab was warned about these threats. Tsegazab then armed himself with a .40calibre pistol and told others to be prepared for a possible shootout.
Shooting Folorunso Owusu, a 17-year-old member of a gang called the Le Side Crew arrived at the party and was confronted by Nahom Tsegazab, who displayed a handgun and challenged Owusu to fight if he did not leave. At approximately 10:40pm, less than two minutes after arriving at the party, Owusu opened fire with a 9 mm handgun, shooting Tsegazab twice. He was hit once in the right biceps and once in the abdomen; one of the bullets passed through Tsegazab and injured a bystander. Tsegazab fell to the ground in front of 207Danzig Street and reached for his gun, "recklessly" firing eleven rounds at Owusu, who retreated through the crowd. One of these bullets struck Owusu in the leg. A third shooter, who remains unidentified, fired fourteen rounds from an Uzi submachine-gun into the crowd.
Twenty-four bystanders were shot, two fatally, and three people were trampled by the panicked crowd (including a pregnant woman). The shooting victims were aged 22months to 33years. Shyanne Charles, 14, was fleeing from the initial gunfire when she ran into the line of fire of the third shooter. She was struck by several bullets and collapsed and died on the doorstep of 203Danzig Street. Joshua Yasay, 23, a community mentor with an honours degree in criminology who aspired to be a police officer, was shot by a bullet that pierced his heart and lungs. It has not been determined whether Tsegazab or the third shooter killed him.
Aftermath and initial arrests The injured were taken to five area hospitals by sixteen ambulances and an emergency medical services bus. This was the first occasion that Sunnybrook Hospital's trauma centrethen the largest of its kind in Canadadeclared a Code Orange for mass casualties with almost a hundred staff involved in the response. In May2015 a team of paramedics were honoured for their actions during the shooting.
Investigators found more than 25 fired shell casings at the scene and recovered five firearms. Thirty alcohol bottles were picked up after the shooting. Police, community workers, and the media suspected that the shooting was between members of the Galloway Boys and the Malvern Crew, having anticipated a violent clash as some senior members of the rival gangs had been released from prison. This belief was reinforced when, two and a half hours after the shooting on Danzig Street, there was a shooting at another TCHC complex on Whiteleas Avenue, away. Two bullets were fired through the front window of the house where Mesquito lived with his mother. No one was injured.
On 19 July, while being treated at hospital, Nahom Tsegazab was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm in relation to the Danzig Street shooting. The following day about a thousand people participated in a memorial march for Charles and Yasay. Mesquito was arrested on 27July for two counts of uttering threats to cause serious bodily harm at the block party. At the time of his arrest, Mesquito had been carrying a loaded .22 calibre revolver for which he was charged with nine weapons-related offences. Within twelve days of his arrest, Mesquito's family were evicted by TCHC for a lease violation.
In the search for gunmen, police executed a series of vehicle inspections, checks on parolees, and search warrants in the week of 29July4August, during the course of which more than twenty firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition were seized. There were concerns about violence during the 4August Caribana parade, which attracts one million people, and which had been the site of a fatal shooting in 2011. Hundreds of additional officers were deployed and police announced no serious incidents at the parade.
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