unimaginative2
Senior Member
A very interesting case and the kind of police work that they should be doing. The arrest of these people seems to have made an enormous difference in crime in northeast Scarborough.
3 guilty in Galloway Boys murder trial
Jul 15, 2009 12:26 PM
Betsy Powell
Courts Reporter
Toronto Star
The largest street gang prosecution in Canadian history ended noisily this morning as a jury convicted three men in the drive-by shooting death of an innocent Toronto man.
Tyshan Riley, 26, Phillip Atkins, 26, and Jason Wisdom, 23 were convicted of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and committing murder for the benefit of a criminal organization.
The courtroom was packed with family members, both of the defendants and victim Brenton Charlton, when the verdict was delivered to a passionate response.
The three accused banged on the doors of the prisoners' box and shouted after the verdicts were delivered.
"I didn't kill nobody," Riley said repeatedly as the judge dismissed the jury.
Wisdom had tears streaming down his face as he stood the face the jury. "I told the truth," he yelled out. His mother, Marcia, who had testified for her son, yelled "I know you were home."
"I love you, Mom. You raised a good kid, you know that," Atkins shouted to his mother.
Riley's girlfriend Dana Lee Williams, who attended every day of the trial, was crying as she shouted, "It's okay, baby, it's the system. They want to show they did something for society."
Valda Williams, the mother of the dead man, also sobbed as the verdicts were delivered.
The defendants all yelled at Judge Michael Dambrot as they were led from the court.
The Crown had presented a largely circumstantial case against the three members of a gang called G-Way or Galloway Boys, named for their neighbourhood in southeastern Scarborough.
Prosecutors said they shot up a car they mistakenly believed belonged to a member of the rival Malvern Crew during the evening rush hour on March 3, 2004.
That car carried two innocent victims. Charlton, 31, was killed, and Leonard Bell, now 48, was seriously wounded.
During their investigation, police said they had identified "a new form of activity" called a ride squad, in which G-Way sought revenge against Malvern for the 2002 murder of a G-Way leader.
"They would go up to Malvern, Malvern area and just look for anybody who looks like they could be gangbanging or affiliated to gang bangers, anybody, if you looked a certain way then basically you're a target," former G-Way member Roland Ellis testified.
Marlon Wilson, a childhood friend of Riley and Atkins, who testified against them at a preliminary hearing but recanted it all at the trial, described the revenge tactics during an interview with police.
"They do it when they're bored," he said. "They go up to Malvern and pop someone - doesn't matter who."
"It's like a joke to them," a Malvern Crew leader told an associate in a conversation caught on police wiretaps. "Anybody can get it. There have to be laws and they are breaking the code."
Born in Toronto on Oct. 28, 1982, to parents originally from Jamaica, Riley grew up with twin older brothers and two younger brothers in the same Scarborough neighbourhood he later sought to rule.
As a skinny child, Riley had an "I'm not scared of you" attitude, recall people who knew him then. He wouldn't back down from anyone and would demonstrate his toughness by inviting other youths to punch him in the stomach.
He showed little interest in formal education and lasted a short time at Sir Robert Borden, a high school in southeast Scarborough.
At an early age, Riley hustled hard and by the time he was 17, Riley would later boast, he was making up to $3,000 a day.
At 18, he was sentenced to nine months in jail after pleading guilty to possessing crack and assaulting a man during a pickup basketball game at a Pickering high school. A man was hit several times by gunfire after Riley got into the scrap on the court. Another G-Way member was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
At the time of his arrest on April 19, 2004 on charges that he and Atkins shot two teens, Riley had just been sentenced to house arrest for possessing a firearm.
Wiretap evidence, along with statements by former G-Way members, paints Riley as an ambitious and manipulative young man who considers himself a leader.
In his own words, he was "Master P on the block" who "takes care of everybody" and has "little peoples" do his bidding.
He once summed up his guiding philosophy this way: "I eat, sleep, s--- and talk money, that's the way to live." But he is also seemingly capable of tenderness - at least to his girlfriend, Dana Lee Williams, and her two young daughters, whose father was the gang leader whose slaying he is purported to have been seeking to avenge.
"I love them derly (sic)," he wrote in a jail cell note that was admitted into evidence.
3 guilty in Galloway Boys murder trial
Jul 15, 2009 12:26 PM
Betsy Powell
Courts Reporter
Toronto Star
The largest street gang prosecution in Canadian history ended noisily this morning as a jury convicted three men in the drive-by shooting death of an innocent Toronto man.
Tyshan Riley, 26, Phillip Atkins, 26, and Jason Wisdom, 23 were convicted of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and committing murder for the benefit of a criminal organization.
The courtroom was packed with family members, both of the defendants and victim Brenton Charlton, when the verdict was delivered to a passionate response.
The three accused banged on the doors of the prisoners' box and shouted after the verdicts were delivered.
"I didn't kill nobody," Riley said repeatedly as the judge dismissed the jury.
Wisdom had tears streaming down his face as he stood the face the jury. "I told the truth," he yelled out. His mother, Marcia, who had testified for her son, yelled "I know you were home."
"I love you, Mom. You raised a good kid, you know that," Atkins shouted to his mother.
Riley's girlfriend Dana Lee Williams, who attended every day of the trial, was crying as she shouted, "It's okay, baby, it's the system. They want to show they did something for society."
Valda Williams, the mother of the dead man, also sobbed as the verdicts were delivered.
The defendants all yelled at Judge Michael Dambrot as they were led from the court.
The Crown had presented a largely circumstantial case against the three members of a gang called G-Way or Galloway Boys, named for their neighbourhood in southeastern Scarborough.
Prosecutors said they shot up a car they mistakenly believed belonged to a member of the rival Malvern Crew during the evening rush hour on March 3, 2004.
That car carried two innocent victims. Charlton, 31, was killed, and Leonard Bell, now 48, was seriously wounded.
During their investigation, police said they had identified "a new form of activity" called a ride squad, in which G-Way sought revenge against Malvern for the 2002 murder of a G-Way leader.
"They would go up to Malvern, Malvern area and just look for anybody who looks like they could be gangbanging or affiliated to gang bangers, anybody, if you looked a certain way then basically you're a target," former G-Way member Roland Ellis testified.
Marlon Wilson, a childhood friend of Riley and Atkins, who testified against them at a preliminary hearing but recanted it all at the trial, described the revenge tactics during an interview with police.
"They do it when they're bored," he said. "They go up to Malvern and pop someone - doesn't matter who."
"It's like a joke to them," a Malvern Crew leader told an associate in a conversation caught on police wiretaps. "Anybody can get it. There have to be laws and they are breaking the code."
Born in Toronto on Oct. 28, 1982, to parents originally from Jamaica, Riley grew up with twin older brothers and two younger brothers in the same Scarborough neighbourhood he later sought to rule.
As a skinny child, Riley had an "I'm not scared of you" attitude, recall people who knew him then. He wouldn't back down from anyone and would demonstrate his toughness by inviting other youths to punch him in the stomach.
He showed little interest in formal education and lasted a short time at Sir Robert Borden, a high school in southeast Scarborough.
At an early age, Riley hustled hard and by the time he was 17, Riley would later boast, he was making up to $3,000 a day.
At 18, he was sentenced to nine months in jail after pleading guilty to possessing crack and assaulting a man during a pickup basketball game at a Pickering high school. A man was hit several times by gunfire after Riley got into the scrap on the court. Another G-Way member was convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
At the time of his arrest on April 19, 2004 on charges that he and Atkins shot two teens, Riley had just been sentenced to house arrest for possessing a firearm.
Wiretap evidence, along with statements by former G-Way members, paints Riley as an ambitious and manipulative young man who considers himself a leader.
In his own words, he was "Master P on the block" who "takes care of everybody" and has "little peoples" do his bidding.
He once summed up his guiding philosophy this way: "I eat, sleep, s--- and talk money, that's the way to live." But he is also seemingly capable of tenderness - at least to his girlfriend, Dana Lee Williams, and her two young daughters, whose father was the gang leader whose slaying he is purported to have been seeking to avenge.
"I love them derly (sic)," he wrote in a jail cell note that was admitted into evidence.
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