On August 24th, 2001, at approximately twelve ten a.m., thirty-three-year-old Cecil Hinds was shot and killed outside a townhouse complex at 53 Silverstone Drive in Rexdale, a neighborhood in north Etobicoke, Ontario. Toronto Police Service officers responded to the scene in 23 Division, where Cecil was found suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Despite life-saving efforts by emergency personnel, he was pronounced dead at the scene, becoming Toronto’s thirty-fourth homicide victim that year.
Cecil Hinds, a pharmacist at The Hospital for Sick Children in downtown Toronto, was not the intended target; police described the shooting as a case of mistaken identity. He had returned to his old neighborhood in Rexdale, where his family had once lived, to visit friends and watch a basketball game. After the game, he was sitting outdoors with a friend when three youths came running around a corner and opened fire. Cecil was struck as he tried to take cover.
Investigators believed the gunmen were settling a score tied to ongoing gang violence in the area, specifically a conflict between the Mount Olive Crips and Jamestown Crips. Det. Sgt. Doug Grady, a homicide investigator at the time, called the killing “one of the most supreme cowardly acts I’ve seen in my years as a homicide investigator.” He added, “I think the persons who came here and did this certainly had somebody in mind, but they picked the wrong person.”
Cecil Hinds had immigrated to Canada from Guyana in 1982 with his mother, three brothers, and three sisters after their father died. The family first settled in Rexdale but later moved to Woodbridge, Ontario, hoping to escape the neighborhood’s growing violence. A few years after the move, Cecil returned for what should have been a simple visit. He left behind a young family and a promising career.
More than two decades later, the murder of Cecil Hinds remains unsolved. No suspects have been publicly identified, and no arrests have been made.
Crime Immemorial 