Youtube rappers convicted of murder
Crown relied on music videos to prove gang links
Two Toronto men who appear in numerous rap videos have been convicted of murder by a jury apparently persuaded that the violence they exalt in their music is more than artistic expression.
Chael Mills, 23, the accused shooter, was convicted of first-degree murder because the jury found the killing was committed for the benefit of a criminal organization, a street gang called M.O.B. Klick, a subset of the Vaughan Road Bloods. He receives an automatic life sentence with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
Lavare Williams, 21, was convicted of second-degree murder and also receives an automatic life sentence. He returns to Superior Court for sentencing on May 9, when the judge can impose a parole eligibility period of between 10 and 25 years.
The three-month trial included more gang evidence than ever before admitted in a Toronto courtroom. Crown attorneys relied on gritty YouTube rap videos, violent lyrics, graffiti, tattoos and intercepted jail letters as evidence that the Bloods and M.O.B. Klick were street gangs in the Vaughan Rd. and Oakwood Ave. area.
Defence lawyers argued that M.O.B. is a rap group, not a street gang and that Williams and Mills — a rapper known from his coarse-language YouTube rap videos as Heartless G. — may have an affinity for gangster rap, but that doesn’t make them violent gang members.
“(Defence lawyer Talman Rodocker) asks you to separate the man from his music,” Justice Robert Clark told the jury Thursday, while giving his final legal instructions.
On May 3, 2010, around 3:30 p.m., the two men confronted Mitchell Celise, 17, and an older family friend as they walked down Winona Dr. Members of the Bloods identify themselves with the colour red, and the pair told Celise he had no business wearing blue in their territory.
Celise was a member of the Eglinton West Crips, the hated rivals of the Vaughan Road Bloods, the jury was told. He was wearing a blue baseball cap and blue shoes, blue being the signature colour of the Crips.
Celise’s companion watched him turn and run down the sidewalk with the two men in pursuit, one of them firing five shots in his direction. Celise collapsed after being struck once in the back.
Det. Doug Backus, testifying as a gang expert, stated that gangs use videos to communicate to other gangs, stake territory and threaten their rivals. There is still a “paucity” of legal precedent in the area of street gangs, Clark noted in a 44-page pre-trial ruling.
Two days after the shooting, the friend went to police and described the gunman as a person with a tat- too on his neck. Homicide Det. Mary Vruna identified Mills, who has a neck tattoo, as a person of interest and arranged a photo lineup so that a tattoo was Photoshopped onto the necks of12 people in the lineup.
Mills was picked out of the lineup. Forensic testing revealed a hat and shirt recovered near the scene revealed the presence of Williams’ DNA and gunshot residue.
The Crown also introduced into the trial phone records, surveillance footage and text messages, which the prosecutors said were full of references to the shooting.
They included a text sent from Williams phone to Mills’ number two hours after Celise was shot. “Yo Fam. is MY daughter styll wit you.” Backus testified “daughter” was a code word for a firearm. Williams has no children.
Jurors retired late Thursday afternoon and returned Saturday just before 2 p.m. with their verdicts.
Asked by Justice Robert Clark if he had anything to say, Mills declined with a polite “no thank you.”
Vruna said gang-related homicides are particularly difficult to investigate because of the lack of witness co-operation, though in this case several witnesses did testify for the prosecution.
“We’re indebted to them for being brave enough to come forward,” Vruna said.
Neither Mills nor Williams testified in their own defence.