Lethal Weapon: Police Trace A Single Gun To Five Serious Crimes

How can one gun do so much terrible damage? The answer, according to Bill Blair, is all too easily. The Chief emerged on Tuesday to reveal the incredible misery a single .9 millimetre pistol has caused so many in the GTA.

The gun in question was on display last Thursday at Police Headquarters, as they tried to reinvigorate the cold case of the shooting of a TTC driver in October 2005. Detectives have finally charged a man, 21-year-old Malcolm Chalmers, in that senseless crime, but cops are equally alarmed by the circuitous and violent route the weapon took to reach their grasp.

Police found it when they raided a home in the Lawrence and Orton Park area in September 2006. Then they then began tracing its ruinous rampage.

“As a result of the analysis of ballistics testing of the firearm  … and as a result of investigation of evidence that was obtained at a number of other crimes, this one particular firearm has been linked to the murder of Kempton Howard … on December 13th, 2003,” Blair reveals. “It was subsequently used in another attempted murder, a shooting that occurred in Scarborough. Another attempt murder, a shooting that occurred in Durham Region.

“It was used on October the 15th, 2005 in the shooting of Jaime Pereira, our transit driver . And it was used a fifth and final time to our knowledge in an attempt murder in Scarborough.”

The victim in the last crime is refusing to cooperate with police, but two men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison last week in the murder of Howard, a much missed local community leader. Three other crimes the gun has been linked to remain unsolved.

“This single firearm, which is believed to have been stolen in Canada, has been used to our knowledge for five very serious offences,” Blair intones. “Four attempt murders and one murder in the city of Toronto. And I think it is evidence  … of the destructive power of these weapons and it reinforces my belief that we must do everything in our power to limit access to handguns throughout our city and throughout our society.”

Authorities still aren’t quite sure where the gun was taken from, but confirm it was a legally owned weapon that that was stolen during a robbery. Now they’re trying to track how it got from one bad guy to the next.

“It’s our belief that there’s a number of criminals who has had possession of this gun and that it has made its way through a number of different hands and been involved in a number of different serious criminal offences. The actual relationship of the persons involved in these crimes is part of our ongoing investigation into the three unsolved attempt murders in which this firearm was used and, of course, it forms part of this investigation on how the gun came to be into the possession of the now accused, Mr. Chalmers.”

Equally disturbing: when police seized the lethal weapon in September 2006, they also found more firepower, including another handgun and a shotgun.

Mayor David Miller has been equally vocal in his demand for an all-out handgun ban, but it’s a federal matter and he can only offer his opinion – not change the law.