Paroled man charged with first-degree murder in U of T campus shooting
A man on parole in Toronto is facing a first-degree murder charge after police allege he carried out a “planned and deliberate” shooting that killed an international student.
A man on parole in Toronto is facing a first-degree murder charge after police allege he carried out a “planned and deliberate” shooting that killed an international student on a busy University of Toronto Scarborough campus trail just days before Christmas.
Babatunde Afuwape, 28, was arrested last week for a parole violation and is now accused of fatally shooting 20-year-old Shivank Avasthi, a third-year University of Toronto student from India. Investigators say the attack may have been random.
Toronto police say the victim and the accused did not know each other and that no motive has yet been identified.
“We have not yet found a motive for why Shivank was targeted,” homicide Det.-Sgt. Stacey McCabe told reporters on Wednesday.
Avasthi was shot on Valley Trail, a well-used pedestrian path on the Scarborough campus, at about 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 23. The gunman fled before officers arrived.
“He was young, bright and had his whole life ahead of him,” McCabe said.
Investigators believe the accused was on campus for about an hour before the shooting and was not a student.
“I don’t believe that he was a student,” McCabe said. “I think that he was looking to target someone.”
“It is our belief that this was a planned and deliberate act by the accused,” McCabe said, adding that investigators believe Afuwape went to the campus with the intent to kill, though how Avasthi was selected remains unclear.
“We believe that he was there to kill somebody — that’s our belief,” she said.
Police have released an image of the accused taken on the day of the shooting and are urging anyone who may have seen or interacted with him on campus that day to come forward.
Afuwape was taken into custody by officers from Toronto police’s 55 Division on Dec. 28 for a parole breach, five days after the shooting. He has since been charged with first-degree murder.
The investigation is ongoing.
It looked like it was just shoddy reporting on Alex’s part that he didn’t say anything about the alleged perpetrator’s ethnicity. However, this would be an unfair judgment if one looks at an earlier January 8 report on the case by Catherine McDonald of Global News. It is preceded by an editorial note, stating: “A previous version of this story indicated a country of origin and citizenship for Babatunde Afuwape. Those references were included in error and have been removed.” A quick web-search indicated that Afuwape is an Ibo name, the Ibos being a tribe in southwestern Nigeria with adherents to the Christian and the Muslim faiths. From the wording of the note it would seem that Afuwape was Nigerian both by birth and citizenship, and he certainly was by ethnicity. Is there a law restricting news agencies from providing this information out of an over-the-top concern for political correctness, when it clearly might be of relevance to a criminal investigation? If so, this would surely be a subject of interest in itself.
Anyway, Catherine McDonald does provide a thorough detailing of Afuwape’s rap sheet, something that makes one wonder why he wasn’t still behind bars, where he wouldn’t have been able to murder his victim. It should have been part of Alex’s report too, but he is a lackadaisical journo. However, he is a young guy, so one can still hope he will learn to ply his trade better.