2 men shot dead at backyard party
‘I’m in shock,’ mom says after gunfire shatters birthday celebration for daughter, who was injured in the shooting
For 14 years, Elma Lewis has thrown a backyard birthday party for her daughter that rivals a wedding celebration. The most recent one, on Saturday night, was the first to end in deadly gunfire.
Lewis, who spoke with the Star from her two-storey brick home on Gennela Square in Scarborough, said she did not know the two young men who were shot dead in her backyard around 1 a.m. on Sunday.
Police identified the men as Rinaldo Cole, 33, and Dwayne Campbell, 30, both of Toronto. Lewis’s 28-year-old daughter, whom police have not named, was taken to hospital with serious injuries. Her condition has been upgraded to stable.
“I’m in shock,” Lewis said. “This is really crippling me. Who does this? This is a decent community. I’ve been living here 19, 20 years. This is the first time something like this has happened.”
Toronto police Det. Rob North made a public plea Sunday outside the Lewis home, near Morningside and Sheppard Aves., for information. He asked that witnesses who recorded the shooting on their phones or tablets come forward or report tips anonymously through Crime Stoppers. As of Sunday afternoon, police had potentially hundreds of witnesses but no leads on a suspect.
Although North said there were “upwards of 200 people” at the party, police are struggling to find witnesses. “We’ve had very little co-operation from people,” he told reporters.
Lewis spent most of the day cooking for the celebration. Two cases of barbecued chicken, rice, noodles and salads were served starting about 9:30 p.m. on Saturday. She and her daughter liked to “create a sense of occasion,” Lewis said. They set up a large white tent, the kind with arched windows, and the tables were covered in linens and white lanterns were strung across the yard. “We decorated as if it’s a wedding.”
Her daughter, whom she did not want to identify, sent out formal invitations, which included a dress code. Every year, she has asked guests to wear a specific colour. This year’s colours were “pure white and denim.”
“I’ve been living here 19, 20 years. This is the first time something like this has happened.” ELMA LEWIS HOSTED PARTY WHERE SHOOTING OCCURRED
Lewis said the annual party was a chance to treat family and friends to a night of fun and food. Guests ranged in age “from children to 80year-olds.”
“I was sitting at the window in my dining room, looking out onto the deck outside, which is where most of the young people were, when I heard the shots,” Lewis said.
Aria Bashir, 25, was in her bedroom three houses down the street when it happened.
“I heard two gunshots and then the DJ was like, ‘Hold on, hold on.’ He turned off the music and all I heard was screaming and crying and swearing,” she said.
Bashir looked out her window and saw officers in her backyard. One told her to stay inside, she said. “I was freaking out.” From the Bashirs’ second-floor balcony, Bashir and her parents saw police with dogs searching for the shooter in the green space behind their home, which backs onto the Toronto Zoo. To the right, three houses down, they saw a man lying in the backyard in front of the white tent.
There are no fences separating the backyards between the Bashir and Lewis houses. Police have cordoned the entire area with yellow tape.
“They’re very good neighbours,” Bashir said. “They’re very quiet, they just have one annual party every year and it’s pretty loud, but it’s fine, it’s once a year.”
Bashir, who has lived in the neighbourhood since she was 7, said she had never witnessed anything like this before.
“It’s such a safe part of Scarborough.”
As police continue their investigation, Bashir is left wondering what happened and why.
“We’re just curious to know if the gunman was a guest, was he part of the party?” she said.
Bibi Paul, 57, has lived across the road from Bashir and diagonal to the Lewis house for more than a decade. She didn’t hear any of the commotion in the early hours of Sunday morning, so she was shocked to see police outside her window when she woke up at about 7 a.m.
“I told my husband, ‘Oh, my God, something’s wrong here,’ ” she said.
Although she said she doesn’t know the family well, they’re “such nice people because they talk, we talk, laugh.”
Paul said she’s confident police will find the shooter. “You know, they say you can run but you can’t hide.” With files from Emily Fearon and Alexandra Jones