The Boxing Day shooting was a Canadian gang-related shooting which occurred on December 26, 2005, on

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Yonge Street Yonge Street ( ') is a major arterial route in the Canadian province of Ontario connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Great Lakes#Geography, Upper Great Lakes. Ontario's first colonial administrator, ...

, resulting in the death of 15-year-old student Jane Creba. Six other bystanders—four men and two women—were wounded. The incident took place on one of Toronto's most crowded streets on the very busy shopping day, just a few blocks north of the

Toronto Eaton Centre CF Toronto Eaton Centre, commonly referred to simply as the Eaton Centre, is a shopping mall and office complex in the Downtown Toronto, downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is owned and managed by Cadillac Fairview (CF). It was named ...

. The story generated national news coverage in Canada and influenced the then-underway 2006 federal election campaign on the issues of

gun crime Gun-related violence is violence against a person committed with the use of a firearm to inflict a gunshot wound. Gun violence may or may not be considered criminal. Criminal violence includes homicide (except when and where ruled justifiable ...

and street violence.

Fatality

Jane Creba (May 13, 1990 – December 26, 2005), a grade 10 student at Riverdale Collegiate Institute, was killed in the incident. While shopping with her sister, she was exiting a Pizza Pizza on the west side of the street, when the gunfight erupted. One bullet passed through her upper torso, lodging in her clothing; it was later recovered in hospital. She was rushed to St. Michael's Hospital and died during emergency surgery.

Initial arrests

Police arrested two men on several gun charges at Castle Frank

subway station A metro station or subway station is a train station for a rapid transit system, which as a whole is usually called a "metro" or "subway". A station provides a means for passengers to purchase Train ticket, tickets, board trains, and Emerg ...

within an hour after the shooting: Andre Thompson, 20, who was on probation at the time, and Jorrell Simpson-Rowe, 17. Thompson had been released just before Christmas from Maplehurst Prison near

Milton, Ontario Milton (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 census population 132,979) is a town in Southern Ontario, Canada, and part of the Regional Municipality of Halton, Halton Region in the Greater Toronto Area. Between 2001 and 2011, Milton was the fastest growing m ...

, where he had served 30 days for his role in a convenience-store robbery. He declined a

bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Court bail may be offered to secure the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when ...

hearing for his current charges. Police believe as many as 10 to 15 people were involved in the shooting and that more than one gun was fired.

Later arrests and convictions

Twenty Toronto Police detectives were assigned to "Project Green Apple" (named after Creba's favourite food) to work on the case. On June 13, 2006, Toronto Police conducted multiple raids at 14 locations throughout Toronto in the early morning, arresting six men and two teenagers. Charges laid against them included

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

second-degree murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse committed with the necessary intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisdiction. ("The killing of another person without justification or excus ...

, and

attempted murder Attempted murder is a crime of attempt in various jurisdictions. Canada Section 239 of the ''Criminal Code'' makes attempted murder punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment. If a gun is used, the minimum sentence is four, five or seve ...

relating to the six other bystanders. All arrested are members of two different

street gang A gang is a social group, group or secret society, society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over Wiktionary:territory#Noun, territory in a ...

s. In October 2007, a young man who was rounded up in the initial arrests, Eric Boateng, was shot dead in a seemingly unconnected incident. Boateng was not charged with the shooting, but was later charged with

cocaine Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...

trafficking. As of December 2007, ten people had been charged with murder or manslaughter in the case, three of whom were youths. Those charged with second-degree murder included Jorrell Simpson-Rowe, 17, Tyshaun Barnett and Louis Woodcock, both 19, and Jeremiah Valentine, 24. One of the teenagers who was arrested in June and charged with manslaughter was exonerated on October 25, 2007, after the

preliminary hearing In common law jurisdictions, a preliminary hearing, preliminary examination, preliminary inquiry, evidentiary hearing or probable cause hearing is a proceeding, after a criminal complaint has been filed by the prosecutor, to determine whether the ...

. The teenager charged with murder was committed to trial. On December 7, 2008, Jorrell Simpson-Rowe was convicted by a jury of murder in the second degree. In April 2009, he was sentenced as an adult to life in prison with no chance of parole for seven years. In November 2009, manslaughter charges against four individuals involved in the incident were dropped because the prosecutors "felt there were no reasonable prospects for conviction". The four were alleged by prosecutors to have had a "common unlawful purpose" in the incident, but did not fire a weapon. In December 2009, 27-year-old Jeremiah Valentine pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Creba's death and was given a life sentence with no chance of parole for 12 years. In April 2010, a jury found Louis Woodcock, 23, and Tyshaun Barnett, 22, guilty of manslaughter in the 15-year-old's death, but not guilty of the more serious offence of second-degree murder. They were also found guilty of four counts each of aggravated assault, relating to other people who were wounded by stray bullets that day.

Media coverage and community impact

The Boxing Day Shooting was the subject of intense media coverage, particularly after a year in which the city of Toronto recorded 80

homicide Homicide is an act in which a person causes the death of another person. A homicide requires only a Volition (psychology), volitional act, or an omission, that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from Accident, accidenta ...

s and a city record 52 shooting deaths. Only one month earlier on November 18, 2005, Amon Beckles was killed outside the sanctuary of a church while attending the funeral of his friend, Jamal Hemmings, whose shooting death he may have witnessed a week earlier, on

Eglinton Avenue Eglinton Avenue is a major east–west Arterial road, arterial thoroughfare in Toronto and Mississauga in the Canadian province of Ontario. The street begins at Ontario Highway 407, Highway 407 (but does not interchange with the tollway) at the w ...

between Oakwood and Marlee Avenues in the Eglinton West neighbourhood. The incident was yet another example that led to 2005 being labelled by both the media and police as the year of the gun. Detective Sergeant Savas Kyriacou of the

Toronto Police Service The Toronto Police Service (TPS) is a municipal police force in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the primary agency responsible for providing law enforcement and policing services in Toronto. Established in 1834, it was the first local police se ...

spoke for these people in saying, "Toronto has finally lost its innocence. I think we're going to feel this day for a long time to come." Creba's death has also caused much controversy over the causes of gun crime and the ways to handle the problem. In 2016, author Anita Arvast published a book outlining the issues with systemic discrimination in the case - specifically the charges, convictions and the representation of the incident as a gang rivalry. Also controversial is the resurgence of the

Guardian Angels A guardian angel is a type of angel that is assigned to protect and guide a particular person, group or nation. Belief in tutelary beings can be traced throughout all antiquity. The idea of angels that guard over people played a major role i ...

in Toronto; they arrived in mid-January to visit the city. Toronto street patrols began in July; however, the chapter had run into financial difficulties by September 2006. Some coverage has also analyzed the disproportionate coverage Creba's death received, compared to the similar deaths of numerous men and women of colour.

References

External links

Fourth murder suspect charged in Creba shooting
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The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'', November 8, 2006
Slain teenager veered blithely into crossfire
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'', December 27, 2005
Family of slain Toronto teen remembers their 'bright light'
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CBC News CBC News is the division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC ...

'', December 29, 2005
T.O. shootings take city's 'innocence': Officer
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CTV News CTV News is the news division of the CTV Television Network in Canada. The name ''CTV News'' is also applied as the title of local and regional newscasts on the network's owned-and-operated stations (O&Os), which are closely tied to the nationa ...

'', December 28, 2005
Boxing Day shooting suspect declines bail
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'', January 13, 2006
Video of possible Creba shooting witness released
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