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The Brampton Guardian
Murder rate in Brampton hits a record high
The Brampton Guardian
Tuesday August 19 2008
PAM DOUGLAS
 
BRAMPTON - It has been a deadly year in Brampton so far as the city reached a record number of murders.
There have been eight homicide deaths in Brampton so far, and the year isn’t over yet. That’s double Brampton’s total of four murders for all of 2007, and higher than the city’s average of five annually recorded in recent years. The previous highs were recorded in 2006 (7) and 2005 (6).

Add Mississauga to the mix, and together the two cities have also hit a region-wide record high this year of 18 murders with four months left to go.

So far this year there doesn’t appear to be any common theme shaping the killings in Brampton. They appear to be a mixed bag of motives and situations, from an apparent mob hit on an ex-convict at a local halfway house to the random knifing of a middle-aged couple in a plaza parking lot.

The murder weapons used have been split down the middle- four victims were stabbed to death while the other four were shot.

The killings have also been spread out over the year with one in January, two in each of February, April (a double murder), and June, and one in August.

In six of the eight, the victims were Brampton residents and they ranged in age from 16 to 53.
Two of the murders in Mississauga this year have involved Brampton residents as well- one as a victim, the other as an accused.

All of the cases are still under investigation, but if the past 33 years are any indication, no one gets away with murder in Brampton.

At least, practically no one. Statistics show that, for anyone committing murder in Peel, it’s almost guaranteed they will be caught and convicted.

Since amalgamation formed the Peel Regional Police department in 1974 and up to the end of last year, there were 288 homicides in Brampton and Mississauga combined. Of those, only 12 cases remain unsolved, and only four in Brampton. That’s a solvency rate of 96 per cent.
While it’s an impressive statistic, it is also important to note that it has been maintained over a significant period of time (33 years), said Peel Homicide Insp. Norm English.

And an even more compelling statistic is the 98 per cent conviction rate for all of the homicide charges laid since 1974.

“While that is not a statistic that is kept by the Peel Crown Attorney’s office, it is the result of the tremendous collaborative relationship we maintain with them and the excellent support and assistance we have received from throughout our organization,” English said.

As for this year’s murders in Brampton, arrests have been made in four of the eight so far, but give it time, according to English. Sometimes it takes months to solve the more complicated killings, such as those that are gang-related or those that are committed by stranger-on-stranger. If witnesses leave the scene, as they did after a shooting in June at a Brampton house party, it can take weeks, or even months, to track them down and try to obtain statements from them, English said.

As for the dozen cold cases from years past, they remain open, English said. When new information turns up, it is investigated, he said, and he would like nothing more than to bump that 96 per cent solvency rate to 100 per cent.

Brampton’s 2008 homicides are:

• Wednesday, Jan. 30, 10 p.m.- Constantine “Big Gus” Alevizos, 45, of Toronto is shot in the parking lot of St. Leonard’s House on Queen Street East. He had ties to the mob and had been the target of an organized crime hit in 2001. No arrests have been made;
• Monday, Feb. 18, 2:20 a.m.— Andre Harrisingh, 26, of Malton is shot at the rear of Trilogy Night Club on Kennedy Road South. Five years earlier, Harrisingh was charged with second-degree murder in a fatal shooting, but the charge was later withdrawn in court. No arrests have been made in his killing;
• Saturday, Feb. 23, 9 p.m. Daniel Grandison, 20, of Brampton dies after a knife fight with a stranger at the rear of a Peter Robertson Boulevard plaza. Police said the killing was not gang related. Mark McKintosh, 21, of Brampton was critically stabbed in the fight and was later charged with second-degree murder;
• Wednesday, April 30, 12:30 p.m.— Brampton’s Rahimullah Shahghasy, 53, and his wife Nazifa, 52, are stabbed to death by a stranger at a strip plaza on Red Maple Drive at McLaughlin Road. Dwayne Palmer, 28, of Brampton has been charged with second-degree murder;
• Sunday, June 22, just before midnight— Tamar Seale, 19, of Brampton is found stabbed to death in the stairwell of a Sir Lou Drive apartment building. A former friend with whom police say he had a "pre-existing dispute", Naipaul Basdeoram, 19, of Brampton, was charged with second-degree murder;
• Monday, June 30, 11:20 p.m.— Glenford Reid, 31, of Brampton is hit by multiple gunshots at a house party on Woodsend Run. A bullet also grazed a 4-year-old child. No arrests have been made;
• Saturday, Aug. 9, 12:35 a.m.— Alex Masih, 16, is shot near a townhouse complex on Collins Crescent. No arrests have been made.