MANDEL: Killers sentenced to life for senseless 'execution' of beloved youth worker
Article content
The judge called it the murder trial’s “elephant in the room.”
Why in the world did Noah Anderson, 24, Junior Jahmal Harvey, 23, and their two accomplices unleash 59 shots at strangers just enjoying a smoke in Regent Park? As the men ran for their lives, why did they pump 14 bullets into Thane Murray, the beloved 27-year-old city youth worker, even as he lay dying?
tap here to see other videos from our team.
MANDEL: Killers sentenced to life for senseless 'execution' of beloved youth worker Back to video
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Why did they shoot Allen Uthayakumaran nine times, leaving him in a coma for three weeks, or nail Tony Nguyen in the foot as he managed to escape?
Was it all because of a beef over rival neighbourhoods? Or even more senseless, to provide the gleeful lyrics for their rap song where they boasted of sending their victim “straight to Jesus?”
Has life really become this cheap in our city?
In a packed downtown courtroom Tuesday, Superior Court Justice Gillian Roberts sentenced Anderson and Harvey to automatic life terms with no possibility of parole for 25 years for murder and two concurrent life sentences for the attempted murders in what she called a “new high-water mark of harm” with their attack on an entire community.
The young killers appeared to smirk and swivel in their chairs with boredom as Roberts recounted the pain they’ve caused with Murray’s senseless execution.
“There is no evidence that any of the accused knew any of the victims. Nor is there any evidence that anyone would have a motive to hurt, let alone kill, any of the victims,” she said.
“The elephant in the room throughout this trial was why did this happen? Mr. Anderson and Mr. Harvey and the other two shooters are the only ones that can provide real insight into that question. All I can say is that I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Anderson and Mr. Harvey, together with Rajahden Angus Campbell, wrote Peppered about the shooting and it demonstrates deep animus toward the neighbourhood of Regent Park.”
It was Sept. 18, 2021 — a Saturday night — and Murray was with his two childhood friends, planning their next day’s basketball game while hanging out at the edge of the parking lot in the area of Regent Park known as the “swimming pool.”
They had no idea their neighbourhood had been targeted in a carefully planned ambush by four shooters from the MG4L (Menace Gang For Life), a rap collective associated with Alexandra Park and with a hate-on for Regent Park.
Their organizer appeared to be the unlikely Anderson, a high-achieving entrepreneur and York University child education student obviously attracted to the gangster side of life. He scouted the shooting target area, rented the getaway car and booked a nearby hotel room to be their “staging ground.”
After the four shooters changed the car’s licence plates as well as their clothes, they parked close to Regent Park and walked in with guns blazing. Of the two remaining masked suspects, Jabreel Elmi, 30, is awaiting trial after his arrest in Saskatoon earlier this year while Angus Campbell, 22, remains at large.
“The violence involved in the shooting was extreme,” Roberts said. “The victims were completely innocent; guilty of nothing more than sitting, chatting, enjoying a warm late-summer evening with old friends in their neighbourhood.”
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Just 10 days after the murder, Anderson and Harvey were in a recording studio working on their rap song boasting about taking a stranger’s life, claiming responsibility as the “RP (Regent Park) killas.”
“Your block is getting peppered / MG4L man,” the song says. “Left him DOA / Flip ‘n flopping like a seizure … sent that boy straight to Jesus.”
What a beacon of light they chose to extinguish.
Murray’s mom Dawn was so overcome with anguish that she could barely get out the words of her victim impact statement. “It feels like they ripped my son out of my stomach. Even though I look fine on the outside I am dying on the inside.”
The common theme in the 16 statements was that the youth mentor was a much-loved force for good,
“Mr. Murray was such an integral part of so many of the programs being run at the Regent Park community centre that they had to be shut down immediately after his death,” the judge noted. “Worse, the community lost a shining star, a success story. This not only undermined the community’s sense of safety, but it struck at its ability to hope.”
And why? Has life become so cheap in this city?
It seems it has.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.