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By Zosia Bielski, National Post
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Wendell Damain Cuff, 25, charched of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder - Photo above of Owen Anthony Smith courtesy of Toronto Police Services
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Police arrested one man yesterday and expected to arrest another one overnight in the shooting of six young men outside a Toronto apartment building two weeks ago.
Wendell Damian Cuff, 25, was arrested at 5:30 a.m at his Toronto home on Amaranth Court, the same tiny street where the shooting took place. He was charged with one count of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.
“Things went down through the night,” Staff Sergeant Bob Skinner said yesterday, confirming that the emergency task force carried out the operation.
Police also issued a warrant for Owen Anthony Smith, 25 (pictured above). He is wanted on one count of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.
Yesterday afternoon, Staff Sgt. Skinner said he expected Mr. Smith would be apprehended “within the next short period of time.”
“If things go well, we should have an arrest later tonight,” he said.
He would not confirm which man is the alleged shooter but said that both are from Toronto and have frequented Lawrence Heights, a maze-like public housing complex built in the 1950s that is bisected by the Allen Expressway.
It was here that Abdikarim Ahmed Abdikarim, 18, was shot dead on March 14.
As the high school student and five other young men talked in an alcove, surveillance camera footage released by police shows a gunman walking over to the group, an accomplice trailing behind him. The man pulls out a semi-automatic handgun and fires at the victims, shooting all of them. Both the shooter and his accomplice run away in separate directions.
The arrest comes after police continued to interview and reinterview the five wounded victims last week. Police have not released their names but said they are all Somali-Canadians between the ages of 18 and 21.
Last week, Detective Sergeant Brian Borg, the lead investigator in the killing, said the victims were co-operating with police, but not able to identify the man who shot them. He said police had ruled out several motives for the shooting.
“We don’t believe there’s any gang association involved here and we don’t think the fact that the victims were Somali was a factor,” he said, but added that investigators were certain that the six young men were deliberately targeted.
“This was not a random shooting: they were targeted,” he said at the time. “Something happened which led up to this.”
Nearly 2,000 Somali-Canadians attended Mr. Abdikarim’s funeral at an Etobicoke mosque days after he died. The crowd of mourners was so large that they could not all fit into even the expansive Khalid Bin Walid mosque.
The teen was the son of former Somali soccer star Ahmed Abdikarim, and was remembered as friendly and popular.
Mr. Abdikarim’s killing was the 11th homicide in Toronto this year.
Investigators warn the public not to approach Mr. Smith, but to contact police or Crime Stoppers anonymously if they see him. Mr. Cuff was scheduled to appear in court this morning.
Source: National Post, Mar 31, 2008