Surveillance camera images of suspect in Riverdale fatal shooting released

Police have released two surveillance videos that appear to show a suspect in the murder of Marcus Gibson walking towards the 24-year-old’s Riverdale home on Sunday afternoon and then running away from the scene half an hour later.

On Sunday afternoon, Gibson was fatally shot inside the second-floor bedroom of the Munro Street home that he shares with his mother. A neighbour who called 911 following the shooting said that they heard five gunshots coming from the home. Gibson was then pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

The surveillance footage released by police on Friday shows a hooded suspect walking south on Munro Street towards Gibson’s home at around 3:20 p.m. The same camera then shows the suspect running north away from the scene at 3:56 p.m.

The suspect in the video is wearing what police describe as a Detroit Tigers baseball cap with a “distinctive pattern on the top side of its peak.”

“The video actually shows him putting on gloves and he is fully masked up. Somebody has to know this person,” Det. Murray Barnes told reporters on Friday. “Somebody who lives in the community where that person is from will know him.”

Barnes said that police believe the suspect may have ran into an awaiting vehicle following the homicide but he said that detail has not yet been confirmed.

The detective said that if the suspect did flee the scene in a vehicle, its driver would be party to the offence of murder and will “face the same fate in the justice system as the killer.”

“My advice to you is to go seek guidance from a lawyer and have them contact me with your statement, which may cause me took at that a little differently,” Barnes said in a direct appeal to a potential getaway driver.

Police not commenting on whether victim had gang ties

Gibson was one of two men who were previously charged with first-degree murder in connection with a 2014 shooting at Garden Restaurant on Dundas Street West, however those charges were stayed in June, 2015 after the Crown stated that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.

His co-accused in that case, Ceyon Carrington, was fatally shot near Queen Street and Carlaw Avenue on March 23 of this year.

Asked on Friday whether there was any potential link to the Garden Restaurant shooting, Barnes said that he has not been able to find one. The detective then refused to say whether Gibson’s murder was gang-related.

“His chosen life and what he did in his life previous to this may come into play and may not. I don’t think it would be fair for me to comment on that right now when I simply don’t know,” he said.

Barnes said that Gibson was a “son, a brother, a father’ and someone who had surrounded himself with “a lot of very good friends.”