3 men charged with murder in public-housing shooting
Three men arrested Friday were charged with second-degree murder in connection with a fatal shooting at a public-housing complex west of High Park this week, an incident police are calling "an execution in broad daylight."
Christopher Shaw, 21, was arrested in an early morning raid Friday and will face a charge of second-degree murder, Det. Pauline Gray of Toronto police said. Police later arrested Eli Goldman, 23 and Jeffrey Troung, 26. The two men, from Toronto, were arrested without incident.
Shaw, wearing jeans and a bright red shirt, was led away in plastic handcuffs after dozens of officers swooped down on the Swansea Mews public housing complex around 6 a.m. to execute search warrants. Police from the homicide unit, as well as rifle-wielding officers from the SWAT team, conducted the raids, near Windermere Avenue and The Queensway.
Gray said police seized three guns within the complex, but so far have not determined whether any of them was used in the shooting on Monday.
That day, as paramedics and police were heading to Swansea Mews for an unrelated incident, shots were fired somewhere within the housing development, and emergency personnel subsequently found a man wounded in the chest, police say. He was declared dead after being taken to a hospital.
The man was later identified as 26-year-old Christopher Kotsopoulos of Toronto.
A number of children witnessed the shooting, which took place in a laneway.
"As everybody knows, Monday was a beautiful day," Gray said. "There was kids on bicycles everywhere, and the fact Mr. Kotsopoulos was the only one killed is a miracle. It's an absolute miracle that there wasn’t somebody else at least wounded with gunfire in an open laneway."
Gray said all the men thought to be involved in the shooting were residents at the apartment complex. Kotsopoulos lived there until several years ago and was back visiting friends on Monday when a fight broke out between him and the men, she said.
"The people who live in Swansea Mews, those people who work hard ... they're just tired of this," Gray added. "They're tired of these young men with incredible entitlement and guns, several guns, holding them essentially hostage."
The detective qualified the shooting as an "execution in broad daylight," but said she does not believe the homicide was gang-related.
The housing complex has more than a dozen security cameras installed, and Toronto Community Housing said earlier this week it has turned over footage to police. Kotsopoulos's obituary, published Friday, said he had three young children. His funeral is scheduled for Monday.
