NEIGHBOURS LIVE IN FEAR

Nothing Done To Shut Down Crackhouse In Building Where 20-Year-Old
Was Shot Dead, They Say

People in the Dundas St. highrise in Etobicoke where Jamie Hilton was
murdered say they are scared for their lives.

No one gives their names, "because you don't want to be like him,"
said one resident.

And yesterday they said they're also angry that nothing was done to
prevent what everyone says was inevitable, and nothing done to close
down what they describe as a crackhouse.

"Everybody knows what was happening in that apartment," said one
woman. Another man who has lived at the building for decades called
life at the building "pure chaos.

"It used to be a senior citizens' building, and now it's a nut
house," he said of the city-run building.

A woman said she looks "left to right before I step out into the hall."

Hilton, neighbours say, kept to himself, and was well-liked and respected.

An autopsy yesterday confirmed Hilton, 20, known as S.P., died of
multiple gunshot wounds. Another man suffered a gunshot to the arm in
the 8:50 p.m. Saturday shooting.

Hilton's family, including mom Jilette Douglas and uncle Denzel Reid,
came to the apartment building yesterday to visit a memorial of
flowers by the front doors, but angrily rebuffed questions from the media.

Hilton was found mortally wounded in the 18th-floor hallway by
emergency services.

A trail of blood reveals the man shot in the arm ran down the stairs
to the 9th floor, where he got on an elevator and went to hospital on his own.

Homicide detectives and tenants who know Hilton don't know why he was
in the 18th-floor apartment, apparently the scene of a shootout.

A couple, identified by tenants as Vera and her common-law husband
Warren, who live in the apartment vanished shortly after police
realized the shootings occurred inside their home, homicide Det.-Sgt.
Steve Ryan said. "When we went back to the apartment hours later,
they had up and gone," he said.

Ryan said they are considered witnesses and he'd like to speak with
them. "First and foremost, we want to make sure that they're safe,"
he said. The couple, in their 40s, are key to determining what
happened in the apartment.

The victim is not known to police, he said.

One resident said Hilton regularly came to his apartment and they
studied the Bible together.

A woman, who didn't want her name or the floor she lives on revealed,
said Hilton "had no problems with anyone."

She said life in the building is getting "worse and worse," and it's
fuelled by drugs.

There were two other crack houses on the floor, she said, but they
were busted, and that slowed traffic to the floor.

She said Hilton was probably ambushed when he arrived at the
apartment, but by who or why she doesn't know. She said he was
"jumped three days earlier" for disrespecting someone.

"What I feel bad about is that it's making him look bad to his mom," she said.