Rexdale Community Safety Brief: Eight Charged After Fatal Shooting in TCHC High‑Rise

Section 1: What Happened & Current Status

On the evening of Friday, May 31, 2026, a 28-year-old man, identified by the Toronto Police Service (TPS) as Anthony Taylor of Toronto, was fatally shot inside a Toronto Community Housing high‑rise near Rexdale Boulevard and Queen’s Plate Drive in the city’s northwest Rexdale area. Officers responded around 7:54 p.m. after reports of gunfire and located Taylor in a hallway on an upper floor suffering from gunshot wounds. Despite resuscitation efforts, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

TPS homicide investigators have now charged eight men in connection with Taylor’s death. Police have stated they believe the shooting was a targeted incident, rather than a random attack. According to a TPS news release issued on June 12, 2026, the following individuals were arrested between June 6 and 11:

• Ernest Gyamfy, 30, of Toronto – charged with second‑degree murder.
• Lincoln Picart, 35, of Toronto – charged with second‑degree murder, unauthorized possession of a firearm, and possession of a loaded prohibited or restricted firearm.
• Gideon Addae, 24, of Toronto – charged with second‑degree murder, unauthorized possession of a firearm, and possession of a loaded prohibited or restricted firearm.
• Kyondre Davis, 23, of Toronto – charged with second‑degree murder.
• Justin Nichol, 23, of Mississauga – charged with second‑degree murder.
• Dejohn Marlin, 23, of Toronto – charged with second‑degree murder.
• Kobina Ackon, 30, of Toronto – charged with second‑degree murder.
• Daniel Addae, 23, of Toronto – charged with second‑degree murder.

As of the latest publicly available information, all eight accused remain charged in relation to Anthony Taylor’s homicide. No trial outcomes, plea agreements, or upgraded charges have been reported by TPS or major local media beyond the June 12 release. Details about potential motives, relationships among the accused, or any broader criminal links have not been disclosed by authorities.

Section 2: Community Context & Social Sentiment

The killing occurred in a densely populated West Humber–Clairville high‑rise cluster commonly associated with the broader Rexdale area. Residents posting on public forums describe the Queen’s Plate and Rexdale corridor as an area where concerns about gun violence have been raised for years, particularly in and around large apartment and Toronto Community Housing complexes.

Local online discussion threads show a mixture of anger, fear, and fatigue. In one widely shared Reddit conversation (paraphrased to protect user privacy), a commenter complained that there have been repeated safety concerns about the Queen’s Plate buildings, expressing frustration that action seems to follow only after a fatal incident. Another user on X (Twitter) argued that while official statistics highlight falling crime across Toronto, day‑to‑day life in Rexdale still feels dominated by sirens, violent incidents, and the constant expectation that something might happen.

“It’s like we’re living in a different city than the stats. Downtown feels safer, but out here in the towers, it’s still the Wild West.” – paraphrased from a Toronto crime discussion thread.

These reactions highlight a common theme: a perceived gap between aggregate citywide crime numbers and the lived reality in specific neighbourhoods. Large social housing sites and tower communities in Toronto’s northwest are often described by residents as under‑resourced in terms of youth programming, mental health supports, and consistent enforcement against firearms offences. Similar perception gaps have been documented in other Canadian communities; for example, residents reviewing local crime statistics for Serpent River 7 in Ontario or Rexton, New Brunswick may also find that local experience does not always match broader regional trends.

From a safety perspective, the targeted nature of this shooting suggests that Anthony Taylor was not selected at random. However, any gunfire inside a shared residential hallway poses immediate risks to bystanders, including neighbours moving through common areas, children, and visitors. For residents of the building and nearby complexes, the psychological impact – hearing shots, seeing forensic teams, or learning that multiple people have been charged with murder – can deepen feelings of insecurity and mistrust, even when police emphasize that specific individuals were the intended targets.

Section 3: How This Case Fits Toronto’s Wider Crime Picture

This homicide comes at a time when Toronto as a whole has been recording lower homicide and major crime rates than in many previous years. Analyses of TPS data from 2024–2025 show that:

• Citywide homicides dropped sharply through 2024 and 2025. By late December 2025, Toronto had recorded around 39–42 homicides for the year, roughly half of the 2024 total during the comparable period and the lowest figure since the mid‑1980s.
• Overall major crime incidents fell by approximately 10%, and shootings and firearm discharges declined by more than one‑third year‑over‑year in some reporting windows.
• National data from Statistics Canada indicate that Toronto’s homicide rate per 100,000 residents remains below that of several other large Canadian and U.S. cities, even in years when local concern about violence is high.

However, this broad improvement is not evenly distributed across the city. The neighbourhood where Anthony Taylor was killed – West Humber–Clairville – has emerged as one of Toronto’s highest‑crime areas on several metrics. A 2025 analysis of TPS figures identified West Humber–Clairville as having approximately 1,570 major crime incidents in the year‑to‑date period studied, a 30.5% increase over the previous year, and the highest volume of major crime among Toronto neighbourhoods at that time. The area has also appeared frequently on TPS maps of shootings and firearm discharges, with multiple gun incidents recorded in the broader Rexdale corridor over the last 12–18 months.

This concentration effect helps explain why residents can feel that crime is rising even as citywide numbers fall. A 2025 survey cited in national media found that roughly three‑quarters of Torontonians believed crime had worsened during the previous year, despite official data showing notable decreases in homicides and shootings. For people living in high‑rise pockets where violence is clustered, individual tragedies like the homicide of Anthony Taylor may reinforce that disconnect between statistics and daily experience.

From a community‑safety standpoint, this case underscores several ongoing issues that have emerged in public discussions:

• The need for focused violence‑prevention strategies in specific high‑risk zones, including around large TCHC sites in the northwest.
• Persistent concerns about the availability of illegal firearms and the involvement of multiple accused individuals in a single targeted attack.
• The importance of combining enforcement with social supports—youth programming, stable housing conditions, and mental health resources—to reduce the likelihood of retaliatory or repeat violence.

While this investigation has led to swift arrests and multiple serious charges, it will likely take months or years for the courts to resolve the case. In the meantime, residents in the Rexdale and West Humber–Clairville area continue to navigate the tension between official reassurance that Toronto is statistically safer than it once was and the immediate reality of living near a building where a young man was shot and killed in a common hallway.

About This Report

This safety alert was generated by aggregating data from local authorities, community reports, and open-source intelligence. Our mission at Crime Canada is to provide citizens with localized safety data and context. We are not the original creators of the underlying news reports.

Primary Source: Information in this report was initially covered by John Marchesan for CityNews.

Additional Research & Context

• Toronto Police Service provided case details in the news release titled “Seven men arrested in a homicide investigation, Rexdale Boulevard and Queen’s Plate Drive area,” available through the TPS News Releases and Public Safety Data Portal.
• A 2025 analysis of Toronto crime trends, including West Humber–Clairville’s major crime counts and citywide homicide declines, is summarized in “Crime Rate Statistics in Toronto 2025” published by Kruse Law Firm.
• Long‑term comparative homicide data for Toronto and other Canadian cities can be found in Statistics Canada Table 35‑10‑0071‑01, which tracks the number and rate of homicide victims by Census Metropolitan Area.