Thieves took two days to break open a safe to steal at least 32 guns
Collector lost $40,000 in firearms
Jan. 7, 2006. 10:23 AM Pictures:
http://tinyurl.com/7z85d
BETSY POWELL, DALE BRAZAO AND JOHN DUNCANSON
TORONTO STAR STAFF REPORTERS
ORLANDO, FLA.-Dozens of high-powered weapons that have flooded Toronto
streets were stolen from a well-known gun collector and firearms instructor
who kept his dangerous stash in a subsidized housing apartment in
Scarborough.
One of the guns taken from the apartment was used last September in one of
the worst bloodbaths in the history of Toronto - a triple murder near the
end of the Summer of the Gun, in a year marked by the worst gun violence the
city has seen. Today, the collector, Mike Hargreaves, is a fugitive from
Canadian justice, living in a modest, two-storey stucco home a few
kilometres from Disney World. Many of the 32 to 35 guns stolen from his
Toronto apartment (machine guns, Glock handguns and assault rifles) are
still on the streets.
Though he once had many friends on the Toronto police force (Hargreaves was
the man who successfully lobbied the force during the early 1990s to adopt
the Glock semi-automatic handgun as its standard issue), that same force has
a warrant out for his arrest, alleging his arsenal was improperly stored.
Hargreaves' stolen cache raises serious issues around the screening of gun
collectors, and the licensing and storage of guns in Canada. The federal
government gave him a storage license to keep weapons in a housing complex
in an area known for gang activity.
Police estimate about half the guns used in crime in Toronto are legally
owned guns stolen in break-ins.
Just this week, police recovered three stolen weapons in two separate
arrests: two firearms stolen during a break-and-enter in Caledon and a rifle
stolen from a home in Hamilton.
Every year, as many as 3,000 firearms are reported stolen in Canada.
"I'm shattered to know that my guns are out there being used by people with
no training and no morals," says the 70-year-old who says he was
instrumental in Toronto police and many other forces switching from the
traditional .38-calibre revolver to the Glock.
In an interview at his home, Hargreaves says he has no plans to return to
face the charges. He says his guns were properly stored in a steel
reinforced vault. Hargreaves, who casts himself as a victim, says it is
common for the Toronto Police to charge a person who has been victimized.
Hargreaves believes Toronto police are making him a scapegoat because "they
can't catch the bad guys."
Top officials at the Toronto Police Service, like Chief Bill Blair, said
they would not comment on the Hargreaves case because charges are pending.
In addition to his work as a lobbyist Hargreaves' curriculum vitae says he
is a licensed, professional firearms and tactics instructor and lists as
clients the Toronto Police Service, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Ontario
Provincial Police along with York, Halton, London and Windsor police forces.
Hargreaves, a one-time bouncer from Liverpool, England, has worked with guns
most of his adult life. He collects them, teaches police officers and
armoured car personnel how to use them and is a founding member of the
Ontario branch of the International Practical Shooting Confederation.
A decade ago, Hargreaves rented unit 1707 at 31 Gilder Dr. - a massive
apartment complex run by the Toronto Community Housing Corp. To qualify for
an apartment, a person typically has a very low - or no - income (often the
person is on welfare). Hargreaves, whose gun consulting office was in
Mississauga, used the Gilder Dr. apartment as his "storage facility."
Every gun was registered, he says, and properly stored. He had all the
proper licences and police inspected the apartment, armed with a
motion-detector alarm, annually.
"I had a permit to purchase submachine guns, rifles and shotguns," the burly
grandfather of four says matter-of-factly. "All the guns in there were
training guns. There was nothing for sale, they were training guns and
personal firearms."
Hargreaves says his income was low enough to qualify for assisted housing.
Mike Hargreaves, gun collector and firearms instructor
To store his arsenal, Hargreaves brought in a monstrous safe. It was so
heavy, movers had to take off the 500-pound door so the elevator could carry
it to the 17th floor. By Christmas 2003, Hargreaves had $40,000 worth of
guns locked in the safe. He said he had a permit issued by federal firearms
officials and the permit was displayed beside the safe.
Hargreaves says housing officials were unaware that he was storing firearms
near families with children.
The daring high-rise burglary worthy of a movie script happened around New
Year's, 2004. Hargreaves was in Florida at the time, where his son runs a
security company.
The Gilder apartment building is at Midland Ave. and Eglinton Ave. E. - not
far from where a gang turf war raged.
Hargreaves believes the thieves lowered themselves from an 18th-floor
balcony, pried loose a wire mesh designed to keep out pigeons and entered
through the sliding balcony door. Police are less convinced and think they
came through the front door.
Working for two days, thieves used sledgehammers and blowtorches to blast
open the 1,700-pound, concrete-and-steel Brinks safe. They made off with
about 35 guns, including military assault rifles, machine guns, and
semi-automatic pistols, a bullet pressing machine and dozens of rounds of
ammunition.
The most dramatic, known use of the stolen guns was on Sept. 16 last year. A
gun battle involving one of the stolen 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistols left
three men dead in and around a BMW parked behind an Etobicoke building at 75
Tandridge Cres. Joseph Santos, 25, Donald Rawluck, 24, and Shane James, 26,
were killed. A fourth man - Michael Matthew Scott - was charged with
second-degree murder.
Det. Sgt. Terry Wark, one of the homicide investigators on the case,
confirmed the Glock came from the break-in. Investigators say the shooting
started after a dispute over a gun sale.
Police say they have now recovered about 15 of the guns since the New Year's
break-in two years ago and that their investigations show the "Gilder guns"
were also used in a downtown robbery and a road-rage incident, according to
41 Division Det. Const. Tom Imrie, who led the probe into the break-in.
After the break-in, police issued a warrant for Hargreaves' arrest, claiming
the firearms were unsafely stored and improperly imported. The charge
against him is not extraditable, so police have to wait for him to cross the
border. He says former deputy police chief Peter Scott, a friend, has
encouraged him to come home.
"I hate criminals with a passion. I've taught people to fight them all my
life," he says.
The break-in and loss of "40 years of firearms" left him "clinically
depressed." He received $20,000 from insurance - half the value of the guns.
Hargreaves, who seems to have a wireless earpiece for his cellphone
permanently in his ear despite being "retired," takes reporters upstairs to
an office and his wall of plaques and ribbons attesting to his 23 years as a
gun instructor and his prowess as a shooter.
The centrepiece of this collection is a framed poster of the Toronto
police's Emergency Task Force in action, signed by Peter Scott and several
other officers.
He defiantly refuses to accept responsibility for the Gilder Dr. break-in.
"If somebody stole a bus and ran over 12 kids, the bus wouldn't be at fault.
If somebody stole 50 pounds of dynamite and blew up a house, the dynamite
wouldn't be at fault. But the minute it's firearms, it's `oh my God, it's
firearms.'"
While investigators were stunned to learn that kind of firepower had been
stored in a subsidized apartment in an area rife with gang violence,
Hargreaves says he followed the law.
`I've had a love affair with guns since I was a child. My dad said I'd grow
out of it, but he was wrong.'
"There's no rule that you have to be there every minute, you don't have to
live there, you don't have to sleep there, you have to have a licence on the
wall," Hargreaves says.
While the doubling of gun-related homicides last year focused attention on
the smuggling of guns from the United States, the Liberals' proposed ban on
handguns has ignited debate whether a total ban on handguns would have any
effect.
Several months after the spectacular gun heist, police arrested alleged gang
leader Phillip Atkins, 22, and charged him with the break and enter at the
subsidized housing unit.
Atkins is currently facing two counts of first-degree murder and four counts
of attempted murder in connection with a spate of shootings of innocent
people in Scarborough, all within weeks of the break-in.
Where have the other guns gone? There are suspicions they have been used in
a number of shootings.
Although Atkins has been charged in connection with the Gilder break in,
police have not linked any of the guns taken from there with any of the
shootings he is alleged to have committed.
Atkins and co-accused Tyshan Riley, 23, are charged with the Jan. 25 slaying
of Omar Hortley, 21, gunned down while walking to friend's house to watch TV
in Malvern, a community in northeast Scarborough.
On March 3, 2004, gunmen opened fire on Brenton "Junior" Charlton, 31, and
Leonard Bell, 45, who were stopped at an intersection over the dinner hour
at Finch Ave. and Neilson Rd.
Charlton died, but Bell survived. Atkins and Riley are charged with
first-degree murder and attempted murder in that case, in addition to his
other attempted murder charges.
Christopher Reid, 26, was convicted of the break-in and weapons charges
after he was nabbed carrying a Beretta stolen from the apartment. He was
sentenced to four years and three months in prison. Hargreaves, who has
testified at a number of murder trials as a gun expert for the defence, said
he is saddened by all the gun violence in Toronto.
But knowing police have a warrant for his arrest he is not making any plans
to return to Toronto any time soon. He said Scott, his good friend, has
urged him to return to Toronto to deal with the charges, but he has
declined. Hargreaves says he has applied for a U.S. green card and if he
leaves he believes he will be "deemed to have abandoned my application."
"He knows the warrant's out there. I don't suspect he'll be coming back
anytime soon unless anything forces him," says homicide Det. Stacy Gallant,
formerly of the gun and gang task force who swore out a warrant for
Hargreaves' arrest.
Instead of returning to Toronto, he relied instead on a "former senior
police officer" and his business partner to clean up the mess in his trashed
apartment. After 30 years of living in Canada, he plans to make Florida his
home. His son Michael lives nearby and runs a security company. Hargreaves
and his wife bought their house for $199,000 US in October 2004. He no
longer has the subsidized housing unit on Gilder.
In addition to helping police forces, Hargreaves' resume shows that he has
testified as an expert witness on behalf of the defence in Toronto court
cases numerous times. He suspects that is one reason the police have charged
him - they don't like that he used his knowledge of guns for people charged
with gun-related offences.
"I've never been charged with a criminal offence in any country I've lived
in, Britain, Germany, Australia, Canada, `til this," said Hargreaves who
says he has been stabbed twice, and shot once in the hand by an errant
bullet on the firing range.
"I think I had two speeding tickets in 30 years."
While the incident in Canada has left a bad taste, Hargreaves remains
unabashed about his passion.
"I've had a love affair with guns since I was a child," said Hargreaves. "My
dad said I'd grow out of it, but he was wrong."
