Man Who Went On Regent Park Shooting Spree Gets 25 Years In Jail

He went on a one-night crime spree that was unlike anything most cops can remember. It was 4am on June 29, 2006, when 23-year-old Quinn Borde embarked on a rampage of rage in Regent Park. And now he’s going to spend the next quarter of a century thinking about what he did that morning.

Borde is the man who shot a victim in the arm at a Dundas St. E. apartment building, prompting emergency runs to the scene by both EMS and cops. He was still there when they arrived and he immediately turned his weapons on the law and the life savers. 

Police discovered at least five shell casings on the ground after the echoes of the gun fire ceased. He managed to get away but with a massive manhunt and a lot of publicity, he turned himself in to 52 Division the next day.

Now almost two years later, the man who caused so much chaos sat in a Toronto courtroom to hear a judge loudly condemn his actions and sentence him to 25 years in prison.

Borde was convicted of two counts of attempted murder last June for trying to kill the intended victim – Sedric Wade – and a Toronto Police officer.

The cop who lived to tell the tale of the near miss – P.C. Michael Austin – sat mute in the courtroom, anxious to hear the concluding sentence and face down the man who tried to take his life that day.

Mincing few words, Justice Bonnie Croll spoke for both victims when she called Borde “a seasoned deliberate and professional criminal” with “an unfortunate background.”

Ironically, it was another case involving the career felon that led to an Ontario Court of Appeals ruling that black offenders can be given more lenient sentences because of systemic racism in the system and other background factors.

But Borde wasn’t eligible for the mercy he helped to create after appealing a sentence related to a separate Regent Park shooting in 2003. The angry judge noted the 18 crimes he’s previously been involved in make him too dangerous and incorrigible to be eligible for any special treatment.

Austin walked out of the courtroom after Borde was led away to begin his long exile. He had no comment on the final outcome.