Accused was banned from possessing guns three times
Date: Nov 10, 2006 9:51 AM
PUBLICATION: GLOBE AND MAIL
DATE: 2006.11.10
PAGE: A13 (ILLUS)
BYLINE: CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD
SECTION: Column
EDITION: Metro
WORD COUNT: 498

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Documents trace past of suspect in Creba case
Accused was banned from possessing guns three times, CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD
writes

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The young man most recently arrested in the notorious Boxing Day
shooting on Yonge Street last year appears to have been banned three
times from possessing guns.

The information is contained in a mass of publicly available court
documents.

They show that when Jeremiah Valentine, who is not yet 25, was arrested
last month after Toronto police allegedly found him in possession of a
Smith & Wesson handgun, he was subsequently charged with a sheaf of
weapons offences, including the three breaches of previous firearms
bans.

He appeared briefly in court yesterday and was detained in custody
pending a second appearance next week.

His lawyer, Iryna Revutsky, said he and his family were “very disturbed”
by the new charges — one of second-degree murder and four of aggravated
assault — against him in the shooting last year that killed 15-year-old
Jane Creba and left six others injured.

All the current charges against Mr. Valentine are, of course, unproved,
and he is presumed innocent. Ms. Revutsky said he planned to contest
them.

Still, what is remarkable about the young man is how utterly
unremarkable appears to have been his voyage through the Canadian
criminal justice system.

It was only last month, when he was arrested, allegedly with a handgun,
that Mr. Valentine was held in custody pending trial.

Indeed, at least twice he was released on what’s called “a promise to
appear,” the least onerous form of release available and one that is
dealt with by officers at a police station.

One of these occasions was his arrest last Jan. 16, when he was charged
with using an imitation handgun to steal cocaine and $3,000.

He was released on a promise to appear from 51 Division.

Cruelly, the allegation is that the actual incident — where Mr.

Valentine allegedly forced a man to buy cocaine by threatening to kill
him — occurred on Dec. 23, 2005, just three days before Jane was gunned
down in what was a veritable wild-west-style gunfight on the busiest
shopping day of the year.

According to documents, even before his arrest last month, Mr.

Valentine was due in no fewer than four courtrooms at three different
Toronto courthouses this month on four different charges that range from
minor offences to possession of a restricted weapon.

He is the fourth person to face murder charges in Jane’s slaying; the
others are Tyshaun Barnett and Louis Woodcock, both 19, and a
17-year-old who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice
Act.

Six others — Andrew Smith, Andre Thompson, Vincent Davis, Shaun
Thompson and two young offenders — are charged with manslaughter.

All four accused of murder and four of those accused of manslaughter
remain in custody.

Though a bullet was retrieved from Jane’s clothing — it fell onto the
floor of an operating room at St. Michael’s Hospital where she was
undergoing surgery — and though police allege at least four of the
accused were armed at the time, police have never said whether forensic
testing has matched the bullet to any of the guns allegedly used that
day.

Not all of the young men who are charged with manslaughter are alleged
to have been armed, The Globe and Mail has learned.

Indeed, how police and prosecutors arrived at the charges is a matter of
some debate in police and lawyer circles. Off the record, sources have
told The Globe that if prosecutors could “put a gun” in the hands of an
accused that day, the charge was murder; if they couldn’t, the charge
was manslaughter.

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !