Ajay Simpson was 20 years old and a new father as he peacefully rode around a North York housing complex on a scooter late on a summer evening.

Suddenly, as captured on chilling surveillance footage, a car pulled up at the complex in the Jane Street and Falstaff Avenue area and four armed and masked people jumped out.

While the other three quickly fired their guns indiscriminately and returned to the stolen vehicle, a 14-year-old boy in the passenger seat set his sights on Simpson. He chased him through the complex’s grounds, shooting him and bringing him to the ground. He then approached the injured Simpson lying on the sidewalk and shot him at close range, ultimately killing him.

There’s no evidence the two even knew each other, as it would appear that Simpson was shot that night on June 24, 2024, for no reason other than the fact that he was there.

“This is a simple plan to shoot and kill somebody at the complex,” Crown attorney James Frost said Wednesday during closing arguments at the boy’s judge-alone murder trial.

“It’s not about finding the victim in terms of his personal identity. It’s about acquiring a target.”

As Superior Court Justice Peter Bawden put it himself: “It is entirely an opportunistic shooting of a randomly selected victim. That’s what I see.”

There’s no dispute that the now-16-year-old boy — the only person arrested in the shooting and who can’t be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act — killed Simpson. The only issue for Bawden to decide is whether the boy committed first- or second-degree murder; he had attempted to plead guilty to the latter, but it was rejected by the Crown, which argues the killing was planned and deliberate.

Dressed in a dark blue suit and glasses, the boy sat between his lawyers Tania Bariteau and Deepak Vadera on Wednesday and occasionally looked around the courtroom as Simpson’s relatives watched from the public gallery.

Frost and co-counsel Ellen An argued that the car’s other occupants were carrying out a plan to recklessly fire their guns on the complex’s grounds, possibly due to some neighbourhood rivalry, but that the accused boy developed a plan to kill just minutes before getting out of the car when Simpson navigated closer to the vehicle.

Frost said the accused treated Simpson like a “hunter with prey,” focusing on the victim as he became separated from other complex residents gathered at a gazebo that night. “What we see on video is he is demonstrating that he is an independent operator: willing and able to execute a very ruthless execution,” Frost said.

Bariteau argued there was no plan for murder. She contended that the evidence points to all four occupants being there to shoot up the neighbourhood and not necessarily injure anyone, but that her client suddenly developed the intent for murder after seeing Simpson. In other words, it was an impulsive act in the heat of the moment, the defence argued.

“It’s only when he continues and sees Mr. Simpson that he switches trajectory,” Bariteau said. “It’s in that spur of the moment, when adrenalin is running high, that (the accused) targets him, has the intent, and proceeds to kill Mr. Simpson.”

Bawden seemed to have some difficulty with the defence argument regarding the lack of a plan for murder. 

“Is it reasonably possible that a 14-year-old boy suddenly decides on his own, as he sees an individual separated from the group: ‘I’m going to go well beyond what I planned with my confederates and instead I’m going to chase this individual down, shoot him to the ground, and kill him?’”

Bariteau argued that it was a reasonable possibility. And that even if her client did develop a plan to kill just minutes before exiting the car, there was insufficient time for him to deliberate on it. 

Loved ones told the Star in 2024 that Simpson had beenwith his newborn daughter and friends just before the shooting happened. He had just been hired by the city to work in a community centre. He was described by friends as humble, funny, and caring. He loved playing basketball and spending time cooking Jamaican food with his mother, Natoya Harriott. 

She recalled how Simpson would always buy plenty of presents for his younger sister at Christmas. 

“He spoiled her,” Harriott said. “That’s why I know he would’ve been a good dad.”

R. v. Paniccia, 2026 ONCJ 247 (CanLII), <https://canlii.ca/t/kkqd8&gt;

Did Toronto police conspire to plant a man’s ID as evidence in a gun case — or was it one officer’s ‘honest lie?’

The accused walked out of court not only a free man, but with the $5,100 police had seized as alleged proceeds of crime.

By Betsy PowellCourts Reporter

Did a Toronto police officer “honestly lie” about finding a suspect’s driver’s licence and health card inside a backpack along with fentanyl, cocaine, cash and two loaded firearms?

Or did he deliberately fabricate the damning evidence — and get backed up in court by lying colleagues — as defence lawyer Humza Hussain alleges.

It’s likely we’ll never know for sure, but this past week, Hussain’s client — who had previous convictions for firearm possession and drug offences — walked out of the downtown courthouse a free man after prosecutors agreed to drop a set of serious charges; he instead pleaded guilty to a single firearms offence.

He had been in custody since his arrest on April 7, 2024, and Superior Court Justice Rob Goldstein accepted the joint Crown‑defence submission that the appropriate sentence was time served.

The plea also ends a potentially explosive Charter motion. Hussain had asked a different judge to stay the proceedings entirely, arguing officers lied about finding the ID in a backpack located inside the downtown apartment of his client’s girlfriend.

According to an agreed statement of facts, the man’s ID was in his wallet, which was recovered from her purse at the time of her arrest outside the building — not with the guns and drugs.

In Canadian law, an argument that police planted evidence is framed as a violation of Section 7 of the Charter, which guarantees the right to a fair trial and protection against abuse of process.

This past January — 21 months after the man’s arrest — Hussain received a copy of the woman’s booking video as part of the Crown’s ongoing disclosure obligations. The man’s wallet can be seen on the table in front of where she was seated, laid out with the rest of the contents from her purse.

The defence position is that during a debrief, the officers in the case realized that there was “virtually nothing” linking the man to the contraband. The officers then “conspired to lie” that his ID was found inside the apartment, Hussain wrote in a factum filed with the court.

The Toronto police gun and drug investigation

The Crown insisted the police had no reason to fabricate evidence because the case was so strong. The man had been seen carrying the Guess backpack on video. It also contained his bank card, and a lease agreement with his name was found inside the room where the backpack was found. The woman also told police the night of the search that the backpack belonged to the accused.

After the seizure, his DNA and fingerprint evidence were found on the drugs and one of the guns.

Prosecutors conceded that the defendant’s wallet was discovered in the purse of his co-accused girlfriend — but argued it was only one officer who “incorrectly stated” that the man’s driver’s licence and health card had been found, loose, in the backpack. The officer also wrote in his notes and testified at the preliminary hearing and during the pretrial motion that he found the ID in the backpack.

The officer’s evidence was “plainly wrong and contradicted” by police photos and videos, the prosecutors wrote in their court filings. “It is unclear how this factual inaccuracy came about, but it is most likely an honest confabulation, not a deliberate fabrication.”

Hussain calls this a “pseudo-scientific explanation,” noting that “confabulation” can refer to a medical disorder. Often associated with a brain injury, such as a stroke, confabulation is when a patient “generates a false memory without the intention of deceit,” according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health — “The patient believes the statement to be truthful, hence the descriptive term ‘honest lying.’”

Earlier this month, when Hussain cross-examined a Toronto officer during the pretrial motion, he learned more photographs had been taken on the day of the arrest. One of them showed his client’s ID on a table, taken April 7, 2024, in a police office during a debrief with all of the officers involved in the search.

“The IDs were photographed amongst all the evidence taken from the search of the apartment in order to paint the picture that they were seized in the apartment. No one is willing to explain how they ended up amongst the evidence,” Hussain’s court document argued.

Days later, the defence and prosecution had a deal.

In court last Wednesday, prosecutors told Goldstein the trial date — set for next month — was going to have to be rescheduled over “disclosure issues,” which would put at “significant risk” the man’s right to be tried within a reasonable time of 30 months.

“That’s the primary reason why the Crown has agreed to the resolution,” prosecutor Benjamin Janzen told the judge.

Defence allegations ‘certainly not frivolous’

During the brief hearing, the judge agreed to Hussain’s request to file a defence “memo” as an exhibit, described as a “timeline of events that have taken place in this proceeding.” Goldstein said he was admitting it “not for the truth of its contents,” but so it’s clear for the record what the defence position was.

Federal prosecutor Anna Martin said the statement was “largely opinion,” adding that some of the claims didn’t line up with the evidence she recalled from earlier proceedings.

Among other things, the memo states that all the officers who attended the debrief testified in court that they had no knowledge of the IDs. Those officers “lied under oath to protect their participation in the coverup,” Hussain wrote. 

Toronto police spokeswoman Stephanie Sayer wrote in an email Friday that she can’t comment on the specifics of the case, but added that the man “pleaded guilty to possession of a loaded prohibited firearm.” She added, more broadly, if the Crown believes misconduct occurred involving a police officer in court proceedings, that information is brought forward for review by Toronto police.

“We take allegations of this nature very seriously and any concerns related to officer misconduct will be addressed through the appropriate processes.”

Before granting the man’s release, Goldstein noted the accused had a 2011 conviction for firearm possession and that he “would have been in line for a more significant sentence” if he’d been convicted.

The judge refrained from commenting on the defence allegations, other than to say Humza’s application for a stay was “certainly not frivolous.”

The accused walked out of court that day not only a free man, but with the $5,100 police had seized as alleged proceeds of crime returned to him. (The Star is not naming him because his case is completed and he is no longer facing a period of incarceration.) 

Betsy Powell is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and courts for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: u/powellbetsy.