EvanL
03-05-2004, 01:45 PM
Victims attacked `out of nowhere'
One dead, one fights for his life
SUTTON EAVES, DALE ANNE FREED AND NICOLAAS VAN RIJN
STAFF REPORTERS
The crime was unspeakably callous. And the victims, police say, were totally innocent — just two people going about their lives, fired on at random.
Now one is dead and the other is clinging to life as his family prays outside his hospital room.
Most people saw Brenton "Junior" Charlton as he served them from his SkyDome concession stand.
On Wednesday, someone saw him through the sights of a gun as he fired a bullet into Charlton's head.
Charlton, 31, driving home with friend Leonard Bell, 43, was minding his own business as he pulled up at a red light on Neilson Rd. and Finch Ave. at about 5:20 p.m. No one knows if he or Bell saw the black SUV pull up beside them or if they were aware when the gunfire began raking the passenger side of Charlton's blue Chrysler Neon.
Charlton, mortally wounded, managed to stagger metres away from the car before collapsing dead on the median as horrified rush-hour commuters watched from their cars, a TTC bus and a nearby transit stop.
Bell, critically wounded, slumped against the steering wheel, sounding the Chrysler's horn as the black SUV sped off, turning right on to Finch Ave. E.
Police investigators were stunned by the attack.
"The victims of this shooting appear to have no involvement in any criminal activity or gang-related activities," Detective Wayne Banks said yesterday. "It is believed that both are hard-working family men, very well respected by their friends."
The assailants, said Banks, "just opened fire and randomly shot at these people."
Among those who heard the gunfire was Toronto pastor Juliete Wallace, anxious to get home before her son returned from school. Wallace looked at her watch and realized it was already 5 p.m. when her bus rounded the corner on to Neilson Rd., a few blocks from home.
Suddenly, Wallace heard four pops sound off behind the bus. As the driver pulled over to call 911, Wallace and the other passengers stepped off to see Charlton, covered in blood, lying across the median, and Bell, motionless, inside the car.
"People on the sidewalk looking, they were scared, terrified," said Wallace.
"But I saw this man in the car with his head back and I went to him," she said. "I saw blood running from his neck down."
Wallace reached inside the shattered window to Bell.
"And he said to me, `I'm getting numb. My back. I got shot. I'm dying.'
"I said to him, `Hold on, hold on, you won't die. Keep praying for Jesus to help you.'
"And he just said, `Call my daughter, call my family. I've been shot in the back.'"
Touching him gently, Wallace sat with Bell for 15 minutes before police arrived. Together, they prayed for God to save his life. "I sat with him and told him not to die," said Wallace, senior pastor of Victory Tabernacle of Praise at Malvern Community Centre.
Bell told Wallace to take his cellphone and call his family. She opened the door and retrieved it but could not reach his daughter. She promised to keep trying from her home and continued to sit with Bell until police arrived and asked her to step away from the crime scene.
As she rode home on the bus, Wallace scrolled through the directory on Bell's phone, trying every number until a man named Carl answered. He phoned Bell's daughter and girlfriend to tell them. When Wallace called Everton Lynch, one of Bell's closest friends, with news of the shooting, he froze in the middle of his kitchen.
"At first, I wanted to tell her she was lying. But at that point, it was not a joke," said Lynch. He is in disbelief that the man he affectionately calls "Dad" was nearly shot to death on the road.
"He's like a father to me. He's very gentle, very loving, very caring," said Lynch, 35.
Bell, a Jamaican immigrant, is the godfather of Lynch's 4-year-old daughter. "I really can't make anything of it. This is definitely not related to gangs. I can stake my life on it."
Vernon Holder, a co-worker of Bell's, says the same thing. He may have been one of the last people to see his friend before the shooting Wednesday when, just before 4 p.m., Bell returned some tools he had borrowed to Holder's home near Meadowvale Rd. and Sheppard Ave. E.
A blue Chrysler Neon idled outside while Bell and Holder chatted amicably in the garage. After sharing a quick hug, Bell drove away.
"I sit down here and I ask myself, even tears come from my eyes, why all the innocent people in this country are getting shot," said Holder.
Last night, at Charlton's Scarborough home, where he lived with his mother, Valda Williams, 48, friends and relatives remembered Charlton as a happy-go-lucky man. He had just driven his mother to work on the night shift as a nurse's assistant at a Toronto nursing home. Now he was on his way to buy some ackee, a Jamaican fruit, for a brunch he'd planned for Sunday with his mother.
With him was Bell, a handyman who'd been fixing Williams' front door.
It was going to be an exciting week. Charlton, better known as "Junior," was planning to leave for a March break at Disney World with his girlfriend.
Sean Vernon was worried that his best friend had been shot when he watched the 6 p.m. news and recognized Charlton's shot-out blue Chrysler Neon.
"I tried phoning him all night on his cell. But there was no answer," he said last night as he comforted Charlton's mother.
By 11 p.m., when news cameras focused in on a Flintstones ball hanging from the Chrysler's rear-view mirror, Vernon was positive. It had been a gift from Charlton's former girlfriend.
He called Williams and told her to go to Sunnybrook.
Williams was met at Sunnybrook by a group of friends and family. "We sat around waiting in suspense for about two hours," she said. Finally she was told somebody needed to go the morgue and identify her son. And it was the worst news a mother could ever expect to hear, she explained.
"I was just numb."
Those close to Bell are frightened by the seemingly random act of violence.
"I don't even want to tell people I live in Scarborough cause they will take to the other side of the road," said Lynch. "It's very disturbing. In my day, you had a little fistfight and you talked and laughed about it. These days, you step on someone's toes and sorry doesn't work any more. They pull a gun."
With files from Leslie Ferenc and Cal Millar
Toronto is getting ****ed up man.
One dead, one fights for his life
SUTTON EAVES, DALE ANNE FREED AND NICOLAAS VAN RIJN
STAFF REPORTERS
The crime was unspeakably callous. And the victims, police say, were totally innocent — just two people going about their lives, fired on at random.
Now one is dead and the other is clinging to life as his family prays outside his hospital room.
Most people saw Brenton "Junior" Charlton as he served them from his SkyDome concession stand.
On Wednesday, someone saw him through the sights of a gun as he fired a bullet into Charlton's head.
Charlton, 31, driving home with friend Leonard Bell, 43, was minding his own business as he pulled up at a red light on Neilson Rd. and Finch Ave. at about 5:20 p.m. No one knows if he or Bell saw the black SUV pull up beside them or if they were aware when the gunfire began raking the passenger side of Charlton's blue Chrysler Neon.
Charlton, mortally wounded, managed to stagger metres away from the car before collapsing dead on the median as horrified rush-hour commuters watched from their cars, a TTC bus and a nearby transit stop.
Bell, critically wounded, slumped against the steering wheel, sounding the Chrysler's horn as the black SUV sped off, turning right on to Finch Ave. E.
Police investigators were stunned by the attack.
"The victims of this shooting appear to have no involvement in any criminal activity or gang-related activities," Detective Wayne Banks said yesterday. "It is believed that both are hard-working family men, very well respected by their friends."
The assailants, said Banks, "just opened fire and randomly shot at these people."
Among those who heard the gunfire was Toronto pastor Juliete Wallace, anxious to get home before her son returned from school. Wallace looked at her watch and realized it was already 5 p.m. when her bus rounded the corner on to Neilson Rd., a few blocks from home.
Suddenly, Wallace heard four pops sound off behind the bus. As the driver pulled over to call 911, Wallace and the other passengers stepped off to see Charlton, covered in blood, lying across the median, and Bell, motionless, inside the car.
"People on the sidewalk looking, they were scared, terrified," said Wallace.
"But I saw this man in the car with his head back and I went to him," she said. "I saw blood running from his neck down."
Wallace reached inside the shattered window to Bell.
"And he said to me, `I'm getting numb. My back. I got shot. I'm dying.'
"I said to him, `Hold on, hold on, you won't die. Keep praying for Jesus to help you.'
"And he just said, `Call my daughter, call my family. I've been shot in the back.'"
Touching him gently, Wallace sat with Bell for 15 minutes before police arrived. Together, they prayed for God to save his life. "I sat with him and told him not to die," said Wallace, senior pastor of Victory Tabernacle of Praise at Malvern Community Centre.
Bell told Wallace to take his cellphone and call his family. She opened the door and retrieved it but could not reach his daughter. She promised to keep trying from her home and continued to sit with Bell until police arrived and asked her to step away from the crime scene.
As she rode home on the bus, Wallace scrolled through the directory on Bell's phone, trying every number until a man named Carl answered. He phoned Bell's daughter and girlfriend to tell them. When Wallace called Everton Lynch, one of Bell's closest friends, with news of the shooting, he froze in the middle of his kitchen.
"At first, I wanted to tell her she was lying. But at that point, it was not a joke," said Lynch. He is in disbelief that the man he affectionately calls "Dad" was nearly shot to death on the road.
"He's like a father to me. He's very gentle, very loving, very caring," said Lynch, 35.
Bell, a Jamaican immigrant, is the godfather of Lynch's 4-year-old daughter. "I really can't make anything of it. This is definitely not related to gangs. I can stake my life on it."
Vernon Holder, a co-worker of Bell's, says the same thing. He may have been one of the last people to see his friend before the shooting Wednesday when, just before 4 p.m., Bell returned some tools he had borrowed to Holder's home near Meadowvale Rd. and Sheppard Ave. E.
A blue Chrysler Neon idled outside while Bell and Holder chatted amicably in the garage. After sharing a quick hug, Bell drove away.
"I sit down here and I ask myself, even tears come from my eyes, why all the innocent people in this country are getting shot," said Holder.
Last night, at Charlton's Scarborough home, where he lived with his mother, Valda Williams, 48, friends and relatives remembered Charlton as a happy-go-lucky man. He had just driven his mother to work on the night shift as a nurse's assistant at a Toronto nursing home. Now he was on his way to buy some ackee, a Jamaican fruit, for a brunch he'd planned for Sunday with his mother.
With him was Bell, a handyman who'd been fixing Williams' front door.
It was going to be an exciting week. Charlton, better known as "Junior," was planning to leave for a March break at Disney World with his girlfriend.
Sean Vernon was worried that his best friend had been shot when he watched the 6 p.m. news and recognized Charlton's shot-out blue Chrysler Neon.
"I tried phoning him all night on his cell. But there was no answer," he said last night as he comforted Charlton's mother.
By 11 p.m., when news cameras focused in on a Flintstones ball hanging from the Chrysler's rear-view mirror, Vernon was positive. It had been a gift from Charlton's former girlfriend.
He called Williams and told her to go to Sunnybrook.
Williams was met at Sunnybrook by a group of friends and family. "We sat around waiting in suspense for about two hours," she said. Finally she was told somebody needed to go the morgue and identify her son. And it was the worst news a mother could ever expect to hear, she explained.
"I was just numb."
Those close to Bell are frightened by the seemingly random act of violence.
"I don't even want to tell people I live in Scarborough cause they will take to the other side of the road," said Lynch. "It's very disturbing. In my day, you had a little fistfight and you talked and laughed about it. These days, you step on someone's toes and sorry doesn't work any more. They pull a gun."
With files from Leslie Ferenc and Cal Millar
Toronto is getting ****ed up man.