HOMICIDE #9 GREGORY TAYLOR,21

Fatal shooting in west end

TERRY DAVIDSON

First posted: Friday, February 11, 2011 09:21 AM EST | 

Gregory Taylor, 21, of Toronto is the city's ninth murder victim of the year.

TORONTO - All Robert Bristow remembers is hearing five loud shots, the slamming of car doors and the sound of a vehicle quickly pulling away.
That was around 1:30 Friday morning, outside Bristow's apartment on Clearview Heights, where police responded to calls of gunfire and found 21-year-old Gregory Taylor shot to death.
The street, filled with low-rise apartments, is in the Trethewey and Black Creek Drs. area of Toronto's west end.
After Bristow heard the pops, he was gripped by fear.
"I just stayed home, (and) kept ... my nose out of everyone's business," he said.
"It was scary. You think I want to live here now? I don't think so."
Lawyer Liam O'Connor said Taylor was used to Toronto's mean streets, having grown up on them. "He grew up in the Maze, a rough Ontario housing complex (at) Jane and Sheppard," O'Connor said.
Taylor was charged in March 2009 with kidnapping and extortion after a 19-year-old man was taken from a Keele St. and Finch Ave. apartment.
He was acquitted of both charges just before Christmas 2010.
"Last time I saw him, he stopped by, gave me a hug and thanked me," said O'Connor, adding that Taylor had recently gone back to school.
Police were still on the scene Friday afternoon, searching around buildings and raking through the snowbanks for clues.
By noon, a City of Toronto crew was called in with a snow-melter to clear the scene for investigators.
Three yellow police markers sat on the ground beside the building at 85 Clearview Heights, marking where brass-coloured shell casings had hit the ground.
Just steps down the road, police had poured globs of plaster on the icy asphalt in hopes of identifying the tire treads of a possible getaway car.
"You can feel it here, the unsavoury characters around here," said a 48-year-old man who didn't give his name.
"There are decent people, but they are like me. They stay in their apartments."
Celestine Skinner lives across from where Taylor was shot. Fear is part and parcel of living in the area, he said.
"The only reason I live in this neighbourhood is cheap rent," said Skinner, standing shirtless in the lobby of his building as he spoke with reporters.
"It's dangerous. But it's like anything, you become immune to it."