Robbery, fight led to Boxing Day shooting: affidavit

A police description of the events leading up to the shooting death of Jane Creba on Boxing Day in 2005 has come to light after a document was made public by a judge Tuesday, describing a robbery and fight that escalated into a gunfight on a crowded street.

Alead investigator's affidavitwas filed in the Ontario Superior Court Tuesday following a ruling that rejected an attempt by possible key witness Richard Steele to avoid testifying in the high-profile case.

Det. Brian Borg's affidavit summarizes a series of interviews and wiretapped conversations, piecing together the series of events that led to Creba's death.

Neither the charges nor the investigator's summary of events have been proven in court.

The interviews were conducted with a 16-year-old charged in the death of Crebaand a young man, Steele, who was standing nearher when she was shot.

The incidentbegan with a robbery on a crowded downtown Toronto street.

Around 4:25 p.m, Steele was surrounded by a group of men and "sucker punched" in the head outside the Eaton Centre.

"Ante up, you know what time it is," one man said to Steele, according to his interview with police.

"You want to get merked [shot]?" he was asked.One manpulled up his right sleeve, revealing the barrel of a gun. Four others displayed guns tucked into their waistbands.

Steele was robbed of two cellphones and hundreds of dollars in cash, then he and the group walked in opposite directionson Yonge Street.

Street confrontations

Police interviews with a 16-year-old facing charges in the Creba killing described details from before and after the robbery.

The youth said he woke up around 9 or 10 a.m. ET that morning andheaded to the mall with his friend, Andre Thompson, that afternoon. At the Eaton Centre, the two met up with Thompson's brother and some young men identified as being from the Martha Eaton Way housing development in the city's northwest end.

When they encountered Steele outside the mall, one man said, "This guy's from Vaughan," before robbing him.

Afterward, the Martha Eaton Way group ran into two men in the foyer near H&M who they identified as part of the Vaughan Oakwood group.

A fight broke outbetween a Martha Eaton Wayman anda memberof the other group.

"Let's go. Let's go," a Martha Eaton Way group man said, and then the group left, strolling down the street toward Foot Locker.

Inside the store, one member of the Martha Eaton Way group said that a Vaughan guy had entered the store, and they left.

Shootout among shoppers

Outside, with hundreds of holiday shoppers strolling down sidewalks, the incident escalated.

One of the so-called Vaughan guys came out, identified bythe 16-year-oldas the same one who had fought with a member of the Martha Eaton Way group.

'The moment that the Vaughan guy saw it [the gun, he] started shooting.' —16-year-old's statement

Vincent (Visa) Davis stood near the storewhile the unidentified Vaughan guywas near the curb with his hand inside his shirt.

The teenager told police he saw the "tip of a gun up the 'Vaughan' guy's sleeve," the investigator wrote in the affidavit, and that's when an 18-year-old from the Martha Eaton Way group pulled a gun out of his jacket.

"The moment that the 'Vaughan' guy saw it, the 'Vaughan' guy started shooting," according to the teen's statement, andthen the Martha Eaton Way group began shooting in return.

The eruption of gunfire hit Creba in the back, killing her and injuringsix others.

Cab driver tipped off police

The 16-year-old and his friend, Thompson, ran away andhailed a cab that took them to a nearby subway station.

After dropping the two off, the cab driver, suspicious after noticing the high number of emergency vehicles whizzing by, called police to tell them about his passengers. He said he'd overheard a cellphone conversation about how the two were meeting a friend at Castle Frank subway station.

Police sped to the station and arrested two men. Officers seized a 9 mm Ruger handgun and two cellphones from the 16-year-old.

Over a span of 33 minutes,one of thecellphone's logs showed the teen had made a dozen calls to his girlfriend.

That cellphone, police later discovered, belonged to the robbery victim Steele, according to the affidavit.

Steele arrested after separate shooting

It wasnot until more than a month later, on Feb. 2, 2006,that police discovered Steele had been shot on Boxing Day.

Suffering fromnew gunshot wounds from an unrelated incident, Steele appeared in the emergency waiting room of Sunnybrook Hospital, where police responded to a call that someone was creating a disturbance.

While seizing Steele's bloody shirt with bullet holes, an officer noticed what looked like a bullet scar on the man's upper chest.

Officer: What happened?
Steele: I was robbed.
Officer: Did you report the incident to the police?
Steele: No.
Officer: Why not?
Steele: Cause I don't know who did it, I don't know who it was.

Later Steele said, "It wasn't a real gun. Look, if it was, I'd be dead. It was a pellet gun."

In the affidavit, the detective wrote that Steele was affiliated with a group that frequents Vaughan Road and allegedly participates in drugs and other criminal activity.

'A guy to my right starts running up with a gun, and then a guy to my left pulled out a gun, and I'm right in the middle of it and I run across the street.' —Wiretapped phonecall

As part of the investigation into Creba's killing, dubbed Project Green Apple, police set up wiretaps in Steele's home.

In one intercepted call, Steele was allegedly heard complaining that his life had been hell since Boxing Day when "that f--ing white girl dies."

In several different calls, he said he was next to Creba when the shooting happened.

"I walked out of Foot Locker, a guy to my — a guy to my right starts running up with a gun, and then a guy to my left pulled out a gun, and I'm right in the middle of it and I run across the street, and I, I didn't see her get shot, but I saw her right before she got shot," he said in an April 2006 phone call.

In another call, he said, "I knew what was going on. I don't look back — I don't look back for shit. Took off. [Pause] Took the f-- off."

Steele is behind bars after pleading guilty in February of 2007 to conspiracy to traffic in firearms and conspiracy to traffic in cocaine.