2008 Has Seen Many Random Attacks In GTA
Posted September 19, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Violence is terrifying no matter who perpetrates it. The world is filled with too many stories of murders, stabbings and beatings, many tied to gang activity and others to drugs or robberies.
And then there are those crimes that simply defy explanation. Anyone can grasp the concept of a hold-up for your money. But a random attack involving a complete stranger who maims you for no reason, leaves everyone disturbed because it could happen to any one of us.
The year 2008 has sadly been filled with all too many examples of these kinds of incidents, leaving victims recovering, relatives grieving and police scratching their heads for motives and suspects.
Here’s a look back at just some of these puzzling incidents.
Bailey Zaveda goes out for a smoke at the Duke of York Tavern in Leslieville and is hit by a bullet, after patrons inside get into an argument. She had no connection to the suspect or those involved, and dies at the scene. She had just moved to Toronto to begin a new life. She was only 23.
Rajiv Dharamdial was taking a shortcut home from school through a field in Brampton when he was accosted by at least one attacker. Despite dialing 911 from his own cell, the 14-year-old didn’t survive his stab wounds. A 15-year-old boy was arrested several days later.
A woman returning to her car in a grocery store parking lot turns to help a man asking for directions. With no warning or reason, he pulls out a knife and stabs her in the neck, before fleeing in a vehicle. Cops are still looking for him.
A young man is found bleeding on the steps of a public library on Orchard View Boulevard near Yonge and Eglinton, after being stabbed by someone he didn’t know. He suffers a punctured lung but survives. Not long after, police were back in the same area, this time at the Eglinton subway station, for yet another knife attack. Cops think the two random incidents are related but have no motive.
Dylan Ellis and Oliver Martin, both 25, had just finished watching an NBA playoff game when they returned to their vehicle parked at Walnut and Richmond Street. As they ran the engine and prepared to depart the area, a stranger approached, pulled out a gun and fired into the car. Both men died, but the gunman didn’t see a girlfriend of one of the victims hiding in the back. She was able to give police a description of the suspect – but couldn’t say why he did it.
A man standing at the College subway station at 6am is shoved onto the tracks for no apparent reason. Fortunately, the train wasn’t coming and he’s able to scramble to safety in time without touching the electrified third rail. He escapes shaken but uninjured.
The man believed to have committed the senseless act is caught on camera leaving the scene. He’s later identified as 42-year-old Grgo Kutlesa , a homeless man with serious mental problems. Cops allege he’s committed other crimes near the TTC but has always been found not competent to stand trial.
One day earlier, a woman leaves her gym and stands at a TTC bus stop near Broadview and Danforth. To her horror, a man appears from out of nowhere and without warning, begins viciously stabbing her numerous times. Nicole MacDonald has a Good Samaritan to thank for her survival. She rushed over to help the badly wounded woman and paramedics credit her quick action with saving her life. A 47-year-old man with a history of mental issues has been charged.
A story that gripped and saddened the entire city emerges from Brampton , where a man and wife were brutally stabbed to death at a strip mall outside a hair salon. Nazifa and Rahimullah Shahghasy had come to the Red Maple Plaza to attend to some errands when a man confronted the woman and began viciously slashing her with a knife. Her husband heard her screams and came running to her rescue but found himself under attack as well. Both died from their wounds and police were forced to Taser a suspect who was turning the knife on his own throat.
The motive in this one remains unclear, but there are suggestions the accused may have allegedly been looking to steal the couple’s car when he was surprised by one of its owners.
The tragedy was compounded because the duo didn’t have any insurance and were in debt, leaving their 21-year-old son and 19-year-old daughter in dire financial straits.
Miraculously, no one was hurt but many were shaken after two separate incidents in the city involving bullets coming through the walls of homes. In the first case, a projectile whizzed right by a woman’s head and lodged into her bathroom wall after coming through her Jane and Sheppard area home. “If you don’t feel comfortable in your own house, where can you feel comfortable?” the victim asked through tears.
In another incident that same day, three bullets pierced the front window of a home in the Finch and Morningside area, but somehow missed everyone inside. Two 18-year-old suspects are facing charges in that case.
A 30-year-old passenger says an innocent “hello” to a fellow traveller on board a TTC bus on Lawrence Ave. at Bolingbroke and becomes embroiled in some kind of argument. Both men get off and the stranger pulls a knife, stabbing the man three times. He then ran off. The reason for the violence remains unknown.
Grocery store worker Hou Chang Mao tries desperately to reach the safety of his store after he gets caught in the middle of a gun battle on Gerrard near Broadview. He doesn’t make it and is caught in the crossfire.
The man who had come to the city from China to make a better life for himself leaves behind a heartbroken and inconsolable 18-year-old daughter and a 23-year-old son.
Despite the offer of a reward and the release of stills caught on video surveillance of some ‘persons of interest’, there have been no arrests.
A seemingly-random attack on a TTC rider left witnesses stunned and a woman battered and in shock. It happened on the King St. 504 car at Yonge Street when two male youths reportedly tried to mug her in front of dozens of onlookers. Eighteen-year-old college student Jennifer Kutosa later vows revenge on her attackers. “I’m going to do everything possible to get you caught for doing this to me,” she promises.
It’s the case that started the shedding of innocent blood and led to the mayor’s renewed campaign on handguns. John O’Keefe, described by all who knew him as a good guy and a wonderful family man, was walking home from a pub in the Yonge and Bloor area in the early morning, when he somehow wound up in the middle of a dispute that had nothing to do with him.
Two men had become involved in a fight with a bouncer at a strip club and one allegedly fetched a gun, brought it back and fired it at the object of his anger. It was at that moment that O’Keefe happened by and he was struck and killed by the bullet.
Two men , including the gun’s owner, are charged in the case.
