Toronto police are appealing to witnesses to help them identify a suspect in the fatal shooting of a Toronto father of three in north Etobicoke over the weekend.
Dwayne Anthony Vidal, 31, of Toronto was shot outside his apartment complex at 19 Mount Olive Drive, in the Kipling and Finch area, around 5:45 p.m. Saturday. He died in hospital.
Vidal had pulled into the parking lot at the apartment complex around 5:30 p.m. and began walking toward the front door, Det.-Sgt. Mike Carbone, of the Toronto police homicide squad, told reporters at headquarters Wednesday morning.
An unidentified male approached from the other direction and opened fire on Vidal as the two passed each other, Carbone said.
The suspect then fled to nearby Silverstone Drive, hopped into a parked white sedan and sped away.
Investigators are seeking the public's assistance in identifying the suspect and the car, and released images of both taken from closed circuit cameras.
Police need the public's help to identify this car in connection with the death of Dwayne Anthony Vidal. (Toronto Police Service)
"The purpose of this conference today is to reach out to anyone who was in that complex at the time that this occurred to supply us with more background information," Carbone said.
The security camera footage shows a man dressed all in black entering the complex several minutes before Vidal got there and walking around.
Carbone would not say whether he thinks Vidal was targeted, and said he cannot rule out that Vidal was the victim of a random attack.
That's where he hopes witness information will come in to help paint a clearer picture of what happened that evening.
Vidal was not known to police, he said.
The homicide is Toronto's 11th of 2018.
Dwayne Anthony Vidal, 31, was shot outside his apartment on Mount Olive Drive Saturday evening. (Toronto Police Service)
'They are scared'
On Tuesday, Pastor Keaton Austin said shootings in the area have residents on edge, and have left them afraid to let their children outside to play.
"When I speak to people, they are scared: to come out of their house, to empty their garbage," Keaton told CBC Toronto.
"They're trying to get home from work early because they don't want to get shot at."
He has long called for a greater police presence in the area, and called on Police Chief Mark Saunders and Mayor John Tory to help address the violence.
"I'm sick and fed up," he said.
'I'm lucky'
On Jan. 15, 2017, Devante Taylor was left paralyzed after he was shot in his car while driving his three-year-old nephew home in the same Rexdale neighbourhood.
Just a couple of weeks before, area resident Barrington Macpherson, 58, said he was shot twice outside his apartment building as he took out the garbage after returning from the racetrack.
It was New Year's Day 2017 at about 8 p.m. when two youths in a black car, their faces covered, pulled up with tires squealing and started shooting at him, Macpherson told reporters Tuesday.
He was shot twice: in one foot and in the opposite lower leg. He has been unable to work since and his doctor told him he will have a permanent limp.
"My life's stuck," Macpherson said. "But I'm lucky still I'm alive."
Barrington Macpherson described being shot twice just over a year ago as he took out the garbage, not far from where Dwayne Anthony Vidal was gunned down. (Sue Goodspeed/CBC)
He did not know Vidal, but Macpherson said "a lot of people get shot around here."
He and his wife are planning a move.
"We can't stay here," she said. "It's a war zone."
Asked about the ongoing violence in the neighbourhood, Carbone said police are doing "everything possible" to keep the community safe.
He would not speak specifically about what sort of police presence was in the community the evening Vidal was shot, or about potential gang activity in the neighbourhood.
