Moving on, not forgetting
Danzig community reacts to guilty verdict in murders,
The first person to open fire at the Danzig St. block party in 2012 was a 17-year-old, angry at being confronted by another young man and told to leave.
A jury found the now-21-year-old man guilty Thursday of two counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Shyanne Charles, 14, and Joshua Yasay, 23. The 21-year-old’s identity is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
As the jury deliberated for three days, the families of Charles and Yasay waited in the courthouse for the end of the final prosecution related to the worst mass shooting in the city’s history.
“Things like this are never over. It just dilutes the pain. The fact is nobody wins. Everybody loses,” said Charles’ grandfather Tyrone after the verdict.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for May, when Crown prosecutor Tom Pittman will argue for the 21-year-old to be sentenced as an adult.
During the seven-week trial, the Crown said the man arrived at the party just two minutes before the shooting happened at10:30 p.m. He was told to leave, just as other young men from areas with rival gangs to the local Galloway Boys had been, the Crown said.
One of the organizers of the party, Nahom Tsegazab, showed the accused a gun to underscore the request to leave, the Crown said.
“(Tsegazab) returned his gun to his bag having made a challenge to (the accused) to either leave the party or engage in a gunfight. (The accused) took up the challenge and shot Nahom Tsegazab,” Justice Ian Nordheimer told the jury in his final instructions, outlining the Crown’s position.
Tsegazab returned fire, along with a third person who has never been identified.
The defence maintained their client is innocent and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was also injured in the shooting.
Tsegazab testified that the accused is not the man who shot him. That person, whom he did not recognize, was taller and lighter-skinned.
The defence told the jury repeatedly that Tsegazab, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to two counts of manslaughter, only agreed to testify because he was concerned the wrong person was being prosecuted.
“We were disappointed in the verdict,” defence lawyer Graham Zoppi said.
“We think to get to the verdict, (the jury) had to rely on some very dan- gerous evidence, hearsay evidence.”
In particular, he was critical of the recording of16-year-old Naod Tsegazab, Nahom’s younger brother, in the Scarborough courthouse cells, which the Crown said provided a true account of what happened the night of the shooting.
In it, Naod said it was the accused, referred to by a nickname, who shot his brother. Naod had shot the accused in September 2012 in retaliation, the Crown said. (Naod Tsegazab pleaded guilty to attempted murder last year and was sentenced as an adult to seven years in prison.)
During the trial, however, Naod testified that he had made up the story based on media reports and rumours to appear tough in front of his cellmates.
During deliberations, the jurors asked to listen again to the testimony of a key Crown witness: an eyewitness to the shooting who described the shooter as being dark-skinned and wearing a Blue Jays cap, black Dickies jacket, with hair in a “puff.”
The defence maintained this description — particularly the puff hairstyle — does not match the accused and that there were several men present who fit the description, including initial suspect Shaquan Mesquito, who was found to have an alibi despite threatening to “shoot up” the party. No links were found by police between Mesquito and the man found to be the first shooter.
The Crown said a Jays cap with the accused’s DNA on it was found at the scene, and that the witness told police initially that the man she saw had short hair.
The 21-year-old convicted Thursday still faces several charges of criminal negligence causing bodily harm related to injuries suffered by more than 20 people due to the exchange of gunfire. The charges were severed from the current case during pretrial motions.
Before leaving the courthouse with Tyrone Charles, Yasay’s father, Romulo, said he hopes no other family will have to go through what they have.
“I hope violence will stop . . . hopefully, for the kids out there, this will be a lesson to them,” he said.
Charles had a message for the young man found guilty.
“He has a chance now to mend his bad ways. I would say, ‘Don’t accept that as a punishment. Accept it as a second chance at life.’ ”