News

Three men found shot to death in a bullet-ridden SUV were ambushed by members of an Etobicoke gang in a drive-by shooting on a westbound Toronto highway before their stolen vehicle was found in a nearby neighbourhood Sunday morning, police sources said yesterday.

"The basic theory is that it was the 10th Street Gang who did this, and they're bad guys," said a police officer familiar with the investigation. "They put a gun up against one of our people last year."

Another police source strongly played down the suggestion that the slaughter entailed any kind of in-house cleaning. The victims were known to police, sources said, but were not members of the 10th Street Gang, a loosely affiliated group of street cocaine dealers.

The bodies of Adrian Bannerman, 29, Aaron Macdonald, 20, and Kurt Charles, 27, were found in an abandoned Nissan Pathfinder just after 3:40 a.m. Sunday on Lunness Road, near the intersection of Browns Line and Lake Shore Boulevard.

Police said the driver of the SUV, unharmed in the attack, abandoned the vehicle moments before another person, whose identity police are still trying to determine, called 911. The driver, who was also known to police, contacted them yesterday evening and is not considered a suspect in the shooting.

"He was in fear of being next," the first police source said, referring to why the man abandoned the car.

At a news conference at police headquarters yesterday, Detective Sergeant Dean Burks told reporters that the men had been at Fluid Lounge in the entertainment district before driving west out of the city. Also at the club were the people suspected of later firing at the men, police said, but they have not received any information to suggest there was an altercation.

J. Randall Barrs, counsel for the night club's owner, Moses Sabatino, said the club has working video cameras that cover its entrances and exits. The club had to install the cameras after its liquor licence was revoked for 30 days in 2006, after Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario violations that included marijuana smoking on the premises.

Det. Sgt. Burks said a black or dark-coloured SUV approached the men on the right and started shooting "multiple" times.

The driver of the victims directed police to the Browns Line off-ramp of the Gardiner Expressway at Evans Avenue as a possible location of the shooting, but police found no shell casings there.

"I would not be surprised if we found shell casings at another location," Det. Sgt. Burks said. Police are in the process of checking Ministry of Transportation cameras on Highway 427 and the Queen Elizabeth Way for any sign of the shooting.

Police are also still trying to determine what led to the incident. "You have to appreciate, we're less than 48 hours into the investigation, so we haven't been able to establish a concrete motive at this point," Det. Sgt. Burks said.

In 2005, members of the 10th Street Gang intimidated passersby and rival gangs from an outpost in the Lake Shore Boulevard and Islington Avenue area of the west end. But a Toronto police investigation that May disrupted the drug operation, nabbing 13 dealers, more than 400 grams of cocaine and $38,500 in cash.

"I haven't heard [the name] since, and I don't want to hear it again, to tell you the truth," said Mark Grimes, City of Toronto representative for Ward 6 Etobicoke-Lakeshore. "It's not like they're a big force down here."