Scarborough slaying was random act, police say
Mother believed to be killed by pair trying to avenge 2013 death
Two vigils held for people killed a year apart are now tragically linked — one event apparently spilling violence into the next.
Rumours had swirled around the motive for the shooting of Andrea White on April 12. Police now believe her death was completely random, the result of gunfire meant as retribution for a dead friend.
Last April 26, 20-year-old Kwado Mensah was fatally shot in the chest at the Grace Hartman Housing Co-op on Forest Creek Pathway, the same Scarborough community where White lived.
Sheldon Scrubb, 18, was charged with murder in that death. Neither suspect nor victim lived at the co-op. The violence just gravitated there, police say.
On April 12 of this year, the anniversary of Mensah’s birth, his friends gathered for a vigil at his west-end gravesite. Police allege that the two of them then drove an SUV across the city, to Forest Creek Pathway. At 11 p.m., they fired six shots.
“My thing is, when is it going to end? When is this violence going to end?” JENNIFER TAITT BABYSAT ANDREA WHITE WHEN SHE WAS A CHILD
One bullet lodged into a residential building. Another struck White.
The 33-year-old mother of four, who was sitting in her garage with family members, including a daughter, did not survive.
“It is my belief, based on the evidence, that after attending the memorial service at the gravesite of Kwado Mensah, the (shooters) acted out their anger by discharging a firearm in the co-op housing complex where Mr. Mensah was killed in 2013,” said homicide Det.-Sgt. Hank Idsinga.
In short, he told reporters Wednesday evening, White’s death was random.
Just as Idsinga was sharing that news, White’s family and friends were gathering in the neighbourhood for a vigil to remember her. More than 200 people came out to the small cluster of homes to lay candles at the spot where she was shot and killed.
“My niece was a kind-hearted, loving person. She’d do anything for anybody,” said Jody White, Andrea’s aunt.
Jody said that people drove from all corners of the GTA to attend the vigil.
“Another senseless killing in the city,” said Jenna Vass, a close friend who helped organize the vigil. “This was a mother and what our community needs to understand is that this family is going to need more support than they could ever imagine. They just lost a whole income, they just lost a supplier, their mother, their lover, their friend.”
Also attending the vigil was Jennifer Taitt, a woman known locally as “Mumsy Moses” who babysat Andrea when she was a child and now runs a youth program called 12 Tribes that includes violence prevention training.
“Where are the guns coming from? That’s my big question,” said Taitt. “My thing is, when is it going to end? When is this violence going to end?”
“This homicide is tragic on so many levels,” said deputy chief Peter Sloly. “Ms. Andrea White did not deserve what happened.”
Sloly called her a leader in the community and “a central figure in her family.”
Alwayne Bigby, 23, and Michael Davani, 21, have been charged with firstdegree murder in her death. Police are seeking no other suspects.
The SUV was abandoned and both men fled on foot. Davani was arrested after a short chase and Bigby turned himself in the next morning.
The handgun allegedly used in the shooting was recovered, Idsinga said, adding police also have video of the incident.