TEEN ADMITS TARGETING DRUG DEALERS

Triggered Fatal Retaliatory Attack

A Winnipeg gang member admits he repeatedly targeted several
drug-dealing rivals with bear mace, bricks, gas bombs and guns --
actions that apparently triggered a retaliatory attack that claimed
the life of innocent bystander Phil Haiart.

Yet the 17-year-old witness told jurors Thursday he hasn't been
charged with a single offence for his role in a shocking incident
which gripped the city.

Instead, he was called as a Crown witness to testify against Jeffrey
Cansanay, who is on trial for the October 2005 killing of 17-year-old
Haiart. The former St. John's-Ravenscourt student was struck down by a
stray bullet as he walked in the area of Sargent Avenue and Maryland
Street.

Cansanay is also charged with wounding Abass Jalloh, who was with
Haiart at the time. Jalloh was identified in court Thursday as
"Jimmy", a friend of the teen gang member who was testifying.

"The police said to come to court tell the truth about what went on
that night and everything will be all right," said the teen witness,
whose name can't be published because he has a lengthy record of
unrelated youth convictions.

Defence lawyer Greg Brodsky suggested he was tailoring his testimony
in order to save his own skin and wondered aloud how police could
possibly let him go scot-free.

The youth and his two older brothers are members of the Mad Cowz, who
were at war with several former members during the summer of 2005
after they left to form their own criminal crew called the African
Mafia.

Several of their targets were selling drugs out of a McGee Street home
that the Mad Cowz wanted to shut down because it was on their "turf"
and taking away business, he said.

Cansanay and a 17-year-old former Mad Cowz member were living in the
so-called crackhouse. Cansanay's roommate has also been charged with
Haiart's killing and Jalloh's wounding but will stand trial separately
in June.

The teen witness told jurors Thursday how he took it upon himself to
let Cansanay and the former Mad Cowz member know they weren't welcome.

"Whose job was it to take him down?" asked Brodsky.

"Mine, I guess," said the teen.

In the days preceding the deadly shooting, the teen admits he arranged
for a brick to be thrown into the home and sprayed bear mace in the
face of the ex-member who he said was "talking shit" and needed to be
put in his place.

There was also an exchange of gunfire on Oct. 9 in which the teen
admits to buying a rifle for the sole purpose of going to meet
Cansanay and the teen, then confronting them outside the McGee Street
home.

"I heard they had guns there so I brought a gun. I had a feeling I
should bring it so I did," he said. The teen said he fired about five
shots at his targets but didn't hit them. There were also shots fired
back at him which missed. The incident was not reported to police.

He tried to settle the dispute the following evening -- just hours
before Haiart was killed -- by going back to the McGee home and
tossing three gasoline-filled bottles through the front window. They
failed to ignite.

Brodsky suggested to the teen he wasn't going to stop the attacks
until someone got seriously hurt or killed. "That's why you kept
coming back with bricks and gas bombs and guns," said Brodsky.