‘Planned from the get-go': Gunmen and driver guilty in murder of Toronto boy Dante Andreatta, 12

Toronto Star

3 days ago

Four-and-a-half years ago, 12-year-old Dante Andreatta was walking with his mother in the middle of the afternoon on a North York sidewalk when he was hit in the neck by a stray bullet that wasn't intended for him.
He died in hospital a few days later.
On Saturday, after five days of deliberations, a Toronto jury found three men guilty of first-degree murder in a death that shocked the city for its senselessness. The two gunmen and getaway driver were also found guilty of five counts of attempted murder for opening fire on a carload of teenagers, wounding three of them.
The verdicts mean jurors accepted the prosecution's theory that the broad daylight shooting on Nov. 7, 2020 was planned and deliberate.
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The trio drove a stolen car to 25 Stong Court, north of Jane Street and Finch Avenue West, wearing gloves and masks. They were armed with fully loaded extended magazines. The gunmen waited, watched, and flanked the teens' car together, and, when it pulled away, they chased together and fired 18 shots each at the fleeing vehicle.
'This was a planned murder,' Crown attorney Arian Khader told the jury in his closing address.
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Jurors rejected the testimony of Rashawn Chambers and Jahwayne Smart, both 29. The cousins told the jury they went to 25 Stong Court to do a drug rip-off. They said they had no plans to use the loaded handguns they routinely carried as drug dealers.
Cjay Hobbs, 32, did not testify at trial, but admitted he aided them by driving them to and from the crime; he is already serving a life sentence for murder.
Their plans changed, Chambers and Smart claimed, when one of the five teens in the car flashed a pistol. Chambers and Smart said they went into self-defence mode and sprayed the teens' Honda with 36 rounds as the driver attempted to flee the apartment parking lot; his quick actions averted what would have 'been a massacre,' Khader told jurors.
It was only at trial that then-teen Deshaun Daley, who is now 22, said for the first time that he indeed did pull a gun from his waistband. (He and the car's other occupants were not the intended target of the purported drug rip-off. They were hanging out, rolling joints and waiting for ice cream to be delivered. Daley, however, is currently serving a prison sentence for gun possession.)
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Khader told the jury Chambers, Smart and Daley all lied in court. The defendants were trying to absolve themselves from blame. Daley lied because he 'was scared for his life. He was shot four times and almost died,' said Khader, who prosecuted the case with veteran Patrick Clement.
'There was no gun, they weren't provoked it is what it looks like: a cold-blooded murder,' Khader said. He urged the jury to study surveillance videos that captured the two men chasing and firing their guns at the Honda as it pulled away.
'Neither of them are reacting to something scary,' the prosecutor said, 'this was planned from the get-go.'
Surveillance footage from Nov. 7, 2020, shows the shooting that killed 12-year-old bystander Dante Andreatta, who was out walking with his mom on the far sidewalk of Jane Street, in North York. The video shows gunmen Rashawn Chambers and Jahwayne Smart opening fire on a car containing five teens. At trial, Chambers and Smart have testified they fired in response to a gun being waved in their direction.
He also explained the concept of 'transferred intent.' Smart and Chambers did not need to have the intent to kill Andreatta in order to be found guilty of murder. If Smart or Chambers were trying to kill someone in the Honda, and in doing so accidentally killed the boy, they are guilty of murder, Khader said.
The jury retired to deliberate midday Tuesday after listening to Superior Court Justice Joan Barrett's 300-page charge.
Dante Andreatta, 12, was shot by a stray bullet while out walking with his mom. He died in hospital on Nov. 11, 2020.
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Khader also told jurors in his closing address that their job was not to find the motive. Nor are prosecutors permitted to 'speculate' on one. Nonetheless, Khader noted that many 'senseless' murders happen in Toronto, sometimes over mistaken identity.
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'There is no rationalizing murder,' Khader said as the defendants hunched forward in the prisoner box. He didn't mention that many homicides and shootings in Toronto involve complex gang dynamics and that acts of violence are rarely random and often stem from escalating cycles of retaliation, fear and long-standing rivalries.
Some perceived disputes stretch back decades and, increasingly, have grown to involve innocent victims targeted for no reason other than where they live.
The teen driver of the Honda was aware of this. He told police that while he and his friends sat in the Honda, he noticed a car entering the parking lot and packed with men 'masked up.'
'People do that stuff, they shoot innocent people.'
If the jury accepted the defence claim the pair acted in self-defence, they could have been acquitted. Defence lawyers also asked jurors to consider the defence of provocation — because of the purported gun that Daley pointed — and find them guilty of manslaughter.
In court, Smart testified he was shot multiple times when he was 14, lying in bed in Regent Park; seeing a gun made him panic and freak out. 'I went after the car with a mix of fear and anger, and seeing red.'
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It was fight or flight, gunman Jahwayne Smart explained in court on Tuesday. 'I didn't want to
Chambers was nearby when Smart, his cousin, was shot. He also 'freaked out and lost control,' his lawyer, Monte MacGregor, argued in his closing address. MacGregor, who specializes in murder cases, was co-counsel with Amanda Warth.
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What the jury didn't hear
The trial began about a month ago. In the early days, defence lawyer Richard Posner, who represented Smart, produced a copy of a text the juror sent to someone saying, 'They going down.' The judge gave the sheepish juror a stern rebuke before dismissing him.
Closing arguments sparked legal clashes after Posner suggested a bullet fired from Smart's gun couldn't have possibly killed the little boy, and that his criminal record supports that he isn't violent. The judge instructed jurors to disregard the suggestion that Chambers' gun fired the killing shot, saying no determination could be made. She denied a prosecution request, however, that the jury learn of Smart's previous conviction for manslaughter because of the way Posner had portrayed his client.
Jurors also did not hear that the three were suspects in two other shootings in the days leading up to Nov. 7, one in Brantford, Ont., — where the targeted person was affiliated with the Driftwood Crips; the other at 390 Driftwood Ave., about a three-minute drive from 25 Stong Court. (Charges laid against Chambers, Hobbs and Smart in the Brantford shooting were withdrawn; no charges were laid in the shooting at 390 Driftwood.)
The defendants were faced with overwhelming evidence collected by Toronto police that forced Chambers and Smart to admit they were the shooters. It included extensive surveillance footage, digital evidence, Chamber's fingerprint on the Honda they used to get to and from the crime scene, and the fact Chambers and Smart were arrested outside a downtown Canadian Tire with the murder weapons. (Smart didn't concede his ID, however, until midway through the trial.) Their concession meant that prosecutors put in much of the evidence via an agreed statement of facts.
In 2023, a jury convicted Hobbs of second-degree murder for his role in the daylight shooting of Dimarjio Jenkins in Toronto's entertainment district on May 26, 2020. The rising star in Toronto's underground rap scene performed as the Houdini, often featuring on songs with other rappers based out of the Driftwood area north of Jane and Finch.
Similar to this case, Hobbs was the getaway driver; the shooter has never been identified. Khader, who prosecuted both cases, called the killing of 21-year-old Jenkins an 'orchestrated assassination.'
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Hobbs testified at that trial that he was on Blue Jays Way near King Street waiting to sell a kilogram of cocaine with another man who opened fire when he realized they were about to be robbed. He did not take the stand at this just-completed trial where he was represented by Craig Zeeh.
The jury heard only a passing mention to Smart's brother, Jahvante Smart, the rapper Smoke Dawg. In June 2018, he was murdered in a chaotic daylight double killing on Queen Street West by a gunman who grew up in the same Driftwood neighbourhood where Andreatta would be shot two years later.
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Four of the five teens shot in the Stong Court parking lot came to court and testified. The driver did not. He died from a drug overdose.
The 12-year-old victim's name was rarely mentioned in the course of evidence. Family members attended court daily and sobbed quietly when video surveillance of the shooting played in court.
On Nov. 7, 2020, around 2 p.m., Karla Marroquin and her son were walking northbound on the west side of Jane Street, north of Finch Avenue W. They were coming from the FreshCo at the Jane and Finch Mall.
When they reached Stong Court, Marroquin heard a noise that sounded like fireworks. Bullets were flying and she felt a 'burning' on her back. She turned and saw Dante on the ground. He had been hit in the neck by a stray bullet. She called 911 and put her hands over his neck to try to control the bleeding, she told police in a recorded statement.
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He was rushed to SickKids Hospital where he died on Nov. 11.
Punishment for a first-degree murder conviction is an automatic life sentence with no parole eligibility for 25 years.
Sentencing is set for July 3.