Man shot dead inside home near Esplanade
Resident says incident is latest in community housing building; last shooting was in September
Homicide detectives are investigating after a 52-year-old man was shot dead inside an apartment building near the Esplanade overnight on Saturday.
Police were first called to 25 Henry Lane Terrace, a Toronto Community Housing building in the St. Lawrence area, for reports of four gunshots at about 12:30 a.m. Toronto police Const. David Hopkinson said the 911operator heard screaming and yelling in the background of the call.
Det. Sgt Mike Carbone from the Toronto police homicide squad said that when officers arrived, they found the lifeless body on the fourth floor while searching the building. Carbone said he appeared to have gunshot wounds.
Officers attempted to revive the victim, but he had succumbed to his injuries at the scene. According to police, he lived alone.
“Investigations often take time to unfold,” Carbone said. “We have some surveillance video which we are currently reviewing, we are expecting to receive some more video shortly.”
Police have yet to identify the deceased, as they are still in the midst of notifying next of kin.
The death is Toronto’s 61st homicide of the year so far.
Resident Abdullahi Hassan, 35, said he awoke to police asking if he heard anything and cruisers parked outside his building’s door. He says he was asleep and didn’t hear any gunshots, but the shooting is the latest incident of many at the complex.
“There’s a lot of drug activity that happens here,” he said.
Another shooting happened in the same complex on Sept. 19. The male victim in that case had life-threatening gunshot wounds, but survived. “This is a cycle,” Hassan said. “It just keeps happening over and over again at this complex.”