Two suspects have been arrested in connection with what police have described as an unprovoked shooting that claimed the life of a 26-year-old man in Etobicoke.
Police said they are still looking for someone who acted as a getaway driver.
Nnamdi Ogba was walking to his car after visiting a soccer teammate on Scarlettwood Court on March 16 when two men ambushed him and opened fire, striking him several times in the back.
Toronto police said Ogba, a Brampton resident, “did nothing to bring this onto himself” and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. They have no reason to believe Ogba knew his killers before the shooting.
Security camera video obtained from the Toronto Community Housing complex illustrated the moments leading up to and following the shooting. In the series of clips, two males climb out of an SUV before walking to the building and approaching Ogba and his parked car. The suspects then run from the area and get back into the SUV before fleeing the scene.
Police executed five search warrants in Toronto early Thursday morning – two in the Trethewey and Black Creek drives area, one in the Trethewey Drive and Jane Street area, one in the Sentinel Road and Finch Avenue West area and the last in the Bathurst and Lawrence Avenue West area. They arrested two suspects at their homes as a result.
“Both are alleged to be the shooters in this investigation,” Toronto Police Homicide Det. Jason Shankaran said at a news conference. “The third suspect, the getaway driver, is outstanding.”
The suspects, identified as 19-year-old Trevaughan Miller and 22-year-old Abdullahi Mohamed, have each been charged with first-degree murder.
None of the charges have been proven in court.
Shankaran said information provided by community members was crucial for police to advance what he called a “very intensive investigation.”
“I believe every one murder in this city is unacceptable but when an innocent life is taken for no reason, the community has to stand up and say enough,” he said. “In particular, I’d like to thank the members of Ogba’s family…Their passion in their time of grief helped us move this investigation forward.”
In the days following his death, Ogba’s mother made an emotional plea for her son’s killers to turn themselves in. Members of Toronto’s Nigerian community came forward later in the week and made a wider public appeal for information about the killers.
Shankaran said Ogba’s story struck a chord with officers.
“You can always judge a person’s character by the people they’re surrounded by. I knew we were dealing with a good man here, just by being able to speak to his family members and those that were closest to him,” he said.
“Yes, all deaths are unacceptable but his one in particular inspired these officers to work incredibly hard.”
Ogba worked as an electrical engineer and was engaged to be married. He had been planning on picking up food before going to visit his fiancée when he was shot near his parked car.
Police believe Ogba was killed simply because of an ongoing strife between two neighbourhoods – neither of which Ogba had anything to do with.
Shankaran would not say where exactly the suspects were arrested – acknowledging the ongoing “retaliation from one neighbourhood to another” as a factor – but said police presence has increased at Scarlettwood Court since the murder and will stay that way for the time being.
Toronto Police Supt. Ron Taverner said the addition of uniformed officers in certain neighbourhoods has helped provide the community with a sense of security.
“This back and forth turf war if you want to call it, that type of event, it will continue. It’s our job to interrupt that, to prevent these things from happening and we’re going to go about that in a very proactive way,” he said. “We can’t be everywhere all the time, but certainly we’ll be in this area in the short term.”
One of the warrants was executed at the home of Anna and Kenneth Guy, who told CTV News Toronto that police officers searched their residence at around 6:30 a.m. but left empty handed. A large dent was visible in their door on Thursday morning, likely caused by a police battering ram.
A search warrant document provided to the couple by police indicated they were searching for Miller and Mohamed.
But the couple says they don’t know the people police were looking for. They say it’s possible the men might be friends with a man who often buys homemade roti from Anna and who came to their apartment with him earlier this month.
“We don’t have a clue. You know more than me,” she said. “We don’t know nothing… I have no idea who they are.”
Police have not provided a description of the third remaining suspect but previously said they believed the getaway vehicle was a “newer model” Nissan Rogue.
“To the getaway driver, we will find you and we will arrest you,” Shankaran said.
