At least nine guns blazed in the brazen downtown Boxing Day shooting of 15-year-old Jane Creba, whose killing at the hands of warring west-end gangs galvanized a city already shaken by last year's record tally of gun deaths.
Yesterday, nine sets of homicide charges were announced, capping one of the most intense murder investigations Toronto has ever seen.
The multiple murder and manslaughter charges reflect the fact that six months after Jane was shot, detectives are still not certain who fired the fatal bullet, a police source said.
"This is one of those things where we're going to have to see what happens in court. It'll be interesting."
Following predawn raids that scooped up a total of 21 people, two 19-year-old men have been charged with second-degree murder, as has a third accused who was under 18 at the time Jane was slain and was arrested less than an hour later on gun charges.
Six others -- four adults and two juveniles, one of whom is still on the run -- are accused of manslaughter.
Each of the trio charged with murder also faces six counts of attempted murder over the wounding of six other people caught up in the Yonge Street melee, which began as an altercation between two rival gangs in the Eaton Centre and spilled out onto the sidewalk in a gun battle that sent screaming shoppers fleeing for cover.
The two adults accused of murder -- Tyshaun Barnett and Louis Woodcock -- had been arrested in January on charges of selling crack cocaine to an undercover officer in an incident that saw six police cars damaged and a policeman hospitalized.
Both were free on bail before yesterday's arrests.
Among those accused of manslaughter are two of the six wounded in the Boxing Day gunfire.
An arrest warrant has been issued for the missing youth accused of manslaughter, who is believed to be in England.
Police Chief Bill Blair said Toronto police will seek to have him extradited.
The other 13 suspects arrested yesterday, who include two residents of the Mohawk Tyendinaga Reserve near Belleville, Ont., face dozens of weapons and drug charges not directly related to the shooting, together with a 17-year-old girl accused of conspiring to traffic in cocaine, who remains at large.
"All the accused are members or associates of street gangs active in the city," Chief Blair said, including the two Mohawk natives.
"The tie there, as I understand it, is involvement with two different gangs."
All 23 people in custody will appear in court at Old City Hall this morning.
Among those charged with manslaughter is 20-year-old Andre Thompson, arrested at the Castle Frank subway station less than an hour after the Yonge Street shootout and detained ever since on weapons charges, along with a youth, then 17, who now stands accused of murder.
A star Grade 10 student and athlete, Jane was killed as she and an older sister were bargain-hunting in the post-Christmas crush at one of the city's busiest intersections. Her death -- Toronto's 52nd gun homicide of 2005 -- sent shock waves that captured international attention.
"The location of this gunfight was deeply symbolic to the people of Toronto," Chief Blair said yesterday as he announced the arrests.
"People across Canada and certainly throughout our city were deeply shocked by this reckless and violent crime."
Although just one person was killed in the chaotic gun battle, which left dozens of shell casings and bullet fragments scattered on the road and sidewalk, the multiple homicide charges reflect the police view that all those accused were parties to Jane's death, in the same way as the driver of a getaway car in a robbery is deemed as culpable as the other criminals.
In legal terms, such charges are referred to as "transferred intent," meaning that if an accused sets out to kill person A but kills person B, the requisite intention to kill was nonetheless present.
As well, the laying of so many murder charges offers a powerful incentive for the accused to provide information in an investigation that until recently was conspicuous for the lack of co-operation by people who had direct knowledge of events.
"We would not have laid those charges if we did not believe they were appropriate," Chief Blair said, deflecting questions as to whether the suspected murder weapon had been recovered.
Only one bullet was recovered from Jane -- it fell from her clothing during surgery, and not from her body -- and Globe and Mail sources said forensic tests revealed that it didn't match the 9 mm handgun seized from Mr. Thompson and the youth at the subway station.
Yesterday's roundup was not triggered by a particular breakthrough in the investigation, a police source said.
"It was more of a relentless process that culminated in what happened this morning."
No shots were fired in the arrests, carried out by heavily armed tactical officers aided by provincial police who descended on a total of 14 addresses in North York, the former city of York, and Toronto's east side, west end and downtown area.
Last month, police offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to those responsible for Jane's death, but Chief Blair would not say whether the bounty played any role in the arrests.
Nor would he discuss input from people known to be in the provincial witness-protection program in connection with the case.
He did say, however, that a mysterious man in a tan suit, whose image was captured by surveillance cameras near the scene of the shooting and again, just minutes later, at the emergency entrance to St. Michael's Hospital, was among those picked up by the police yesterday.
As for Jane's relatives, he asked that their privacy be respected.
"I'm not prepared to speak of their reaction," he said.
"The Creba family has responded with great courage in the face of an unspeakable tragedy."
At Jane's high school, Riverdale Collegiate Institute, news of the arrests was greeted with sombre reflection.
Sarah Foster, 16, has painful memories of sharing a civics class with Jane, who Ms. Foster said had helped her with essays.
"We had to write an essay on a topic that interfered with Toronto, and I chose gun violence. I wrote that if you take someone's life away, you shouldn't just go to jail for a few months, but for a long time . . . forever.
"0She helped me -- we all talked about it. When I think about the essay, it's . . . I don't know how to explain. It's painful. I miss her."
Detective Sergeant Savas Kyriacou, who headed the homicide investigation, said detectives worked overtime in the runup to the arrests.
"We've had many sleepless nights and actually have been going for the last 36 hours," he said.
"We had a team of investigators that sometimes reached 20 officers . . . it was a very complex investigation. A dedicated team of detectives worked tirelessly, very long days, very long nights away from their families."
Chief Blair also told reporters it is "highly likely" more people will step forward in the case, and that further arrests may follow.
"However, we believe we have identified and arrested the people we believe the evidence were involved in this crime at this point in time."
Apprised last week that arrests were imminent, Toronto Mayor David Miller praised the "exceptionally hard" police work and said he was relieved and pleased at the outcome.
"We were shocked at where [the shooting]happened, when it happened. Any Torontonian could have been Jane Creba. . . . Everyone understood and every Torontonian felt Jane Creba was their daughter or their sister. It was a great tragedy for everyone in this city."
The arrests also show that police "are really breaking into the violent street gangs -- that is very significant work," Mr. Miller said.
"We need to keep working. . . . We need to get serious about guns. I supported very strongly the former prime minister's call to ban handguns. We need to do that.
"We need to get serious about guns flooding across the border from the U.S. It is just not acceptable to allow them to enter Canada and be used in crimes here."
With reports from Christie Blatchford, Jennifer Lewington and Alexandra Shimo