WALL OF SILENCE IN MURDER PROBE

Kids Warned To 'Not Come Home'

As four people were being gunned down in the crime-plagued Driftwood
community -- one fatally -- parents were frantically warning their
children not to come home after hearing bullets bouncing off houses, a
frustrated homicide detective said yesterday.

From casings forensic officers found, Toronto Police now know that
more than 20 shots were fired last Tuesday at a backyard party in a
townhouse complex southeast of Jane St. and Finch Ave. W., where young
mother Rachel Alleyne was killed, Det.-Sgt. Pauline Gray said in an
interview.

Also, recordings from several Toronto Housing security cameras "are
telling us there were more people than we first thought," she said.

"They're reacting to shots," Gray added, after studying numerous
images frame by frame.

Clearly seeing the reaction on faces, "they're within a few feet of
what was happening," she said.

Yet the homicide squad has had limited co-operation and no one has
called the anonymous Crime Stoppers hotline, Gray said.

TOO SCARED TO TALK

Several residents willing to talk to reporters after the latest murder
said shootings have been all too common over many years in the
neighbourhood, where street gangs often involved in the illegal drug
trade warn residents of retaliation if they even speak to police.

Gray said several parents told investigators "they could hear shots
ricocheting off buildings."

They frantically yelled at their children and dialed cellphones to
warn youngsters that paths, backyards and playgrounds near the
shooting scene were not safe, "and they should not come home," she
said.

Gray and her team are poring over the recordings this weekend, hoping
to soon release several "frame grab" photos with an appeal for public
help to identify witnesses and the three suspects.

In addition to Alleyne, 30, suffering multiple wounds, her female
friend's legs were hit and two men were wounded -- one critically.