What has the gun registry done except cost a lot of money?”
Date: Mar 26, 2005 8:51 AM
PUBLICATION: The Toronto Sun
DATE: 2005.03.25
EDITION: Final
SECTION: News
PAGE: 30
ILLUSTRATION: 1. photo of JUSTIN HODGE 2. photo by Mark Bonokoski BRUNO Dumanski
can’t fathom why his son, Justin Hodge was gunned down remorselessly.
BYLINE: MARK BONOKOSKI

——————————————————————————–

THE NEWS HIT HOME A GRIEVING FATHER SPILLS HIS HEART TO MARK BONOKOSKI

——————————————————————————–

BRUNO DUMANSKI has been reading the newspapers more than ever lately, driven there
by the recent murders of his son and his son’s best friend, who were gunned down
in an apparent botched robbery back in January.

And, as he reads, he tries to figure out what has gone wrong with society and particularly
with society’s youth.

He has no solid answers, though. Just thoughts.

Bruno Dumanski, a 46-year-old self-employed renovator, was never married to the
woman whose son he fathered but he lived with her for almost 10 years and moved
out when Justin Hodge was 4.

But they stayed in touch, he says, as best they could — with Justin, and with his
mother. And Justin’s 22-year-old sister, Sara, lives with him.

“And they would talk on the phone every day,” he says.

Less than a month after Jason Hodge, 20, and Damien Muirhead, 22, were shot dead
in Hodge’s Niagara St. co-op apartment parently fighting for their lives to stop
the triggers from being pulled in what amounted to a home invasion gone out of control
– Toronto homicide cops arrested a teen and young man for first-degree murder.

According to lead investigator Det.-Sgt. Ken Taylor, Roberto Ceballo, 18, and Bryan
Tomlinson, 23, remain in custody today on week-to-week video remands.

“It will be a while (before the case gets to court),” says Taylor. “There
hasn’t even been a preliminary date set yet. Nor has there been disclosure.”

In the meantime, unable to comment on a case before the courts, unable to be specific,
Bruno Dumanski keeps reading the newspapers — trying to get a handle on the times
in which his son lived.

LOW-LEVEL DRUG DEALER

Justin Hodge was described by police as a low-level drug dealer. Small amounts of
marijuana and Ecstasy were found in his apartment by homicide investigators.

“I know what he was doing because what he was doing was much the same as I
did at his age,” his father says.

“But he was doing it to pay the rent and to eat while he went back to school.
Welfare wasn’t helping him, so he helped himself.

“But he was a good kid. Ask anyone who knew him. Ask any of his neighbours.
They’ll all say the same thing.”

Bruno Dumanski grew up in Regent Park. Single mom, no dad. Nothing unusual, other
than the fact that his two sisters and one brother never got in trouble.

Just him.

“I did B-and-Es. I did drugs,” he says. “Between the ages of 16 and
20, I was a handful. But at 20, I smartened up.”

Bruno Dumanski says it is different now. There was no Youth Criminal Justice Act
back in his day. The young offenders of his era didn’t carry their lawyer’s business
card in their wallets, and they weren’t coddled by the system.

“There were no youth facilities back then,” he says. “You went to
the Don Jail. I went to the Don. And once you went to the Don, you didn’t want to
ever go back.

“Pick up the newspaper today and it is obvious that kids have no respect –
no respect for the police, no respect for the justice system, no respect for human
life. Now they’ll kill someone and not think twice about it.”

And this, in essence, was reflected in Justin Hodge’s death notice …

‘IT’S DONE ZIP, HASN’T IT?’

“HODGE, Justin,” it read. “Left us suddenly at night on Friday Jan.
21, 2005 in Toronto … he was taken by the hands of evil, but hopefully will be
remembered for the funny and beautiful soul that he was.”

Bruno Dumanski sits in his west-end apartment and ponders his next question.

“What has the gun registry done except cost a lot of money?” he asks.
“It’s done zip, hasn’t it?

“And what about this young offender’s act or whatever it’s called now? No one
believes in it,” he says.

“And yet our government says, ‘So what!’

“How’s that supposed to work in a democracy?” he says. “This is not
a democracy, is it? This is a joke.”