BMO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-04-29 published
Trying to reconcile a man's life and death
Friends are wondering how a college student from a good family
ended up shot dead by police, writes Anthony
REINHART
By Anthony
REINHART,
Page
A11
Toronto -- Until a couple of weeks ago, anyone who knew the real
Shelton McKENZIE would have expected to find him out clubbing
last night, toasting his 21st birthday on some Toronto dance
floor in smooth urban attire and a fresh pair of Jordans.
Instead, his Friends dressed for a visitation yesterday at a
funeral home in his hometown of Ajax, east of Toronto, to file
past Mr. McKENZIE's coffin and wonder whether they really knew
him at all.
Specifically, they've been wondering how Mr.
McKENZIE -- who
came from a middle-class suburban family, who worked as a produce
clerk through high school, who had young women lining up for
his ever-respectful attention, and who took police courses in
college just last fall -- wound up shot dead by police this month.
It happened just before dawn on Thursday, April 13, near an upscale
home in the Thornhill community north of Toronto, where the
THOMPSON/THOMSON/TOMPSON/TOMSON
family had just endured a home invasion robbery.
York
Regional
Police arrived as Mr.
McKENZIE and another person
fled in the
THOMPSONs' pickup truck. Officers opened fire on
the truck, killing Mr.
McKENZIE.
The second man ran off and holed
up in another home and was arrested within hours.
Ontario's Special Investigations Unit, which probes deaths and
injuries related to police, is still examining the killing of
Mr. McKENZIE.
But York police have linked the two men to five home invasions
in and around Toronto since late February, including the gunpoint
robbery of Sherry
COOPER, chief economist at
BMO
Nesbitt
Burns,
and her husband, Peter.
As she squinted through the murk of predawn to find two masked
men standing in her bedroom, Ms.
COOPER felt surprised, bewildered
and terrified on the morning of March 13.
Police say Mr.
McKENZIE was one of the two mud-splattered men
standing before her and her husband. The pair had broken into
the COOPERs' ravine-side home in Hogg's Hollow, an exclusive
enclave in North Toronto.
They bound the couple with duct tape, ransacked the house and
fled with cash, jewellery, computers and BlackBerrys.
Their masks, and the shock that gripped the
COOPERs, made them
all but impossible to identify.
"We refer to the 'old guy' and the 'young guy' when we speak
to each other, or the 'big guy,' Ms.
COOPER told The Globe
and Mail, "and we're not even sure we're referring to the same
people."
Ms. COOPER, 55, was also caught without her glasses or contact
lenses. "I'm not blind without my glasses, but it was pleasingly
fuzzy, believe me. I didn't particularly want to be 100-per-cent
conscious."
She was conscious enough, however, to talk her way to some relief
after one of the men, armed with a gun, pinned her to the bed.
"He said he wanted jewellery and I said, 'Let me show you… where
it is,' Ms.
COOPER said. "So, fortunately, that got us to stand
up and walk in there" to where her valuables were stored.
The couple were led downstairs and taped to a pillar. One man
stood guard, pointing a gun at them, the other combed the house,
selecting items to fill his backpack and tossing others to the
floor.
Asked whether either man seemed like a novice, or a junior partner,
Ms. COOPER had this to say about the one who stood guard: "Until
the very end I would have thought that he was more nervous, and
that he wasn't as aggressive, he wasn't a leader," she said.
"However, at the end, I managed to get myself out of the tape,
and it was that stand-guard guy that saw me. And then he grabbed
me and, you know, pulled me up the steps and told me, now he's
going to have to hurt me, now he's going to have to shoot me,
and he threw me down on the floor and said he was going to have
to shoot me.
"And it was the other one who said, 'Take her back downstairs.'
So they just retaped us."
"There wasn't, like, a good cop and a bad cop; there wasn't a
leader and a follower," she said. "They were brutal. They clearly
hated us, just [because of] what we had."
But for the people who knew or encountered Shelton
McKENZIE,
nothing is very clear. No one -- from coaches and former co-workers
to Friends and the police themselves -- has been able to reconcile
the way he lived with the way he died.
"I really don't know how or why he became involved," Detective
Sergeant Fred
MOFFATT of York's holdup squad said, adding that
police have seen more young people from trouble-free backgrounds
jumping "right into doing robberies."
Sometimes the goal is to win acceptance from a gang. Others are
dragged in by underworld creditors, such as drug dealers.
"I don't know if that's the case here, so I would never say that,"
Det. Sgt. MOFFATT said. "We're still investigating and still
trying to figure out exactly where he comes from. But yeah, it's
a mystery."
Mr. McKENZIE's parents, who have requested privacy from reporters,
are "just blown away" by what happened, said Lance
BROWN, their
pastor at Refuge City Pentecostal Church in Ajax. "I knew Shelton.
He was a great kid," Mr.
BROWN said.
At the No Frills on Kingston Road in Pickering, Tony
CORNACCHIA
recalled how Mr.
McKENZIE "always asked for as many hours as
I could give him" in the produce department, where he was the
most experienced part-timer, until he left the job a year ago.
"I left him in charge quite a few times, on evenings and weekends."
Mr. CORNACCHIA remembered driving the young man home to his parents'
relatively new house in west Ajax, where he lived with an older
brother, a younger brother and a sister. He described the family
as hard-working and strict, particularly the mother, who insisted
that her son help pay his own way.
"It seemed like they were a very disciplined family," he said,
and when he heard the news of Mr.
McKENZIE's death, "I was surprised
just like everyone else."
Ms. COOPER had trouble squaring the wholesome image of Mr.
McKENZIE
with the man who caused her to feel such terror that morning,
a terror that she said has changed her life forever.
"It is inconceivable to me that some normal, 20-year-old, good
kid finds himself just accidentally in this kind of situation,"
she said. "I have a son who's not much older than that and, honestly,
I just can't even fathom how you get yourself in that situation
unless you've been… involved with some real bad people for a
while."
If that's the case, Shelton
McKENZIE kept his secret life well
hidden.
At J. Clarke Richardson Collegiate, where he graduated in 2004,
basketball coaches Steve
DAWSON and Mike
McFETTERS stood in the
gym last week, puzzled.
"Whatever happened, we didn't see it coming," said Mr.
DAWSON,
a middle-aged man who traded easy, good-natured jibes with the
popular all-star nicknamed Springz for his jumping prowess.
Mr. McFETTERS said his star rebounder avoided situations that
looked like trouble and could take a beating on the court without
losing his cool.
"He wasn't a violent kid," he said, but acknowledged he'd seen
Mr. McKENZIE just three times, for a total of about 20 minutes,
in the two years since he left Richardson. The last time was
just before Christmas, when the young man dropped by the school
after his first semester in the police foundations program at
Durham College in Oshawa.
Mr. McFETTERS said Mr.
McKENZIE was conflicted over whether to
continue his studies, citing the cost and the commute as challenges.
"If he wasn't sure what he wanted to do, he didn't want to go
[back to college] until he could figure things out," the coach
said.
With that, he asked Mr.
McFETTERS about his wife and daughter,
and congratulated him on the impending birth of a second child.
With his death, "there's just questions that I don't know if
we're ever going to get the answers to now," the coach said.
Similar questions are circulating among Mr.
McKENZIE's
Friends,
236 of whom are linked to his profile on hi5.com, a Web gathering
place. Since his death, many have posted photos and comments,
written in the vernacular of on-line chat.
"i cant begin 2 understand y USA did wat USA did," wrote one. 'it
wasnt ur thing… it wasnt like u. buh im not tryna hold nothing
on u. Ire gota 4give u… even tho now ur gone 4ever."
Several young women claimed Mr.
McKENZIE as their dream man,
and gave accounts of long telephone conversations, nights out
dancing, tender moments and hopes for a future together.
In an interview this week, Jennifer
VIEIRA, 19, said Mr.
McKENZIE's
attractiveness was no mystery when she met him after the 2004
Caribana parade in downtown Toronto. He was not only well-dressed,
but also a gentleman.
"He said, 'I'll call you in a couple of hours,' and he actually
called me back later," she said. "He was coming off real. He
wasn't being fake at all."
What was real and what was fake is sure to cross the minds of
many at Mr.
McKENZIE's funeral this morning, inside the Revivaltime
Tabernacle in Pickering.
But inside the church and out, it seems, God only knows.
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BMO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-05-31 published
FOSTER,
Vincent▼
Alexander▼ - Estate of
Notice To Creditors
Creditors and others having claims against the estate of Vincent
Alexander FOSTER, late of the City of Scarborough, Ontario, who
died on August 17, 2005, are required to send full particulars
of such claims to the undersigned Trustee on or before the 28th
day of June, 2006 after which date the estate's assets will be
distributed, having regard only to claims that have then been
received.
BMO
Trust▼
Company▼
agent for the Estate Trustee with a Will,
by their solicitor: Laura M.
TYRRELL
68 Airdrie Road
Toronto, Ontario, M4G 1M2
Page B15
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BMO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-06-07 published
FOSTER,
Vincent▲
Alexander▲ - Estate of
Notice To Creditors
Creditors and others having claims against the estate of Vincent
Alexander FOSTER, late of the City of Scarborough, Ontario, who
died on August 17, 2005, are required to send full particulars
of such claims to the undersigned Trustee on or before the 28th
day of June, 2006 after which date the estate's assets will be
distributed, having regard only to claims that have then been
received.
BMO
Trust▲
Company▲
agent for the Estate Trustee with a Will,
by their solicitor: Laura M.
TYRRELL
68 Airdrie Road
Toronto, Ontario, M4G 1M2
Page B9
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BMO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-06-20 published
BARKER,
Edward▼ "
Hugh▼"
(Member of St. Cuthbert's Anglican Church for 61 years)
Passed away on Monday, June 19, 2006, in his 93rd year. Beloved
husband of Ruth
WADDINGTON for 62 years. Dear father of Nancy
DORKIN, Margaret (Andi
KASPEROWITSCH), Edward (Tish
O'CONNELL),
Marion (Brian
GRAHAM,)
Sharon
(Dana
STANLEY) and Susan (Kevin
DONNELLY.)
Loving grandfather of Cynthia (Greg
CURTIS,) Catherine,
Lisa, John, Clare, Daniel, Jeffrey, Christine, Sean, Adam, Laura,
Jessica, Jack, Rory and Erin. Great-grandfather of Brianna and
Shawna. Dad began his working career at the Board of the Toronto
Stock Exchange at age 19, ultimately becoming a stock broker
for Bongard and Co.
(BMO
Nesbitt▼
Burns▼) for 42 years. A lifelong
baseball fan, he could still recite stats and players names from
years gone by up until a week before his passing. A kind and
thoughtful man who would give the clothes off his back if he
thought that it would help you. May it comfort all to know that
he left us feeling contented and peaceful. We would like to extend
appreciation and heartful thanks to the doctors and nurses at
Sunnybrook and Toronto Grace Hospitals for their care and compassion
and to the staff at 921 Millwood. The family will receive Friends
from one o'clock on Saturday, June 24, 2006 in St. Cuthbert's
Anglican Church, 1399 Bayview Avenue for a memorial service at
two o'clock. In lieu of flowers, donations in Hugh's memory may
be made to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, 1920 Yonge
Street, 4th Floor, Toronto M4S 3E2 or to the Scott Mission, 502 Spadina
Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2H1.
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BMO o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2006-07-08 published
BARKER,
Edward▲
Hugh▲ -- Dispatch:
By Suzanne
MA,
Page M4
A week before he died, Edward Hugh
BARKER could still recite
baseball statistics and players' names from years ago. "You could
talk about any game in any World Series and he seemed to know
all the players and almost all the game-by-game scores," says
his son, Edward John
BARKER. "I used to go on the Internet and
ask him questions, and he would know all the answers."
Mr. BARKER was born in Toronto in 1914 and started working as
a stockbroker when he was 19, ultimately spending 42 years at
Bongard and Co. (now part of
BMO
Nesbitt▲
Burns.▲)
In 1943, he saw Ruth
WADDINGTON across the dance floor at a nightclub
in Toronto. He asked her to dance, and less than a year later
they were married. They would have six children -- five girls
and one boy -- 15 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
In the evenings and on weekends, father and son walked every
square inch of their Leaside neighbourhood - taking long hikes,
fishing, playing catch, strolling by the railroad and watching
the trains flatten pennies they would later use as guitar picks.
And of course, taking the subway downtown to watch baseball games.
When
Edward▲
John
BARKER got married in 1978, his father was his
best man.
And while Mr.
BARKER loved playing ball with his son, he didn't
hesitate to share his mitts with others either.
One winter day while walking around Queen's Park, he saw a man
shovelling snow without gloves. He took off his own and offered
them to the man, who gratefully accepted them.
How 2 letter Surnames like MA work in OGSPI
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