REMEMBER WHEN TORONTO WAS UNDER SIEGE OF GANGMEMBERS AT THE COURTHOUSE? NEW TRIAL TO START JAN 2011.

Back in March 2010, the University Avenue courthouse was enveloped by heightened security and heavily armed Emergency Task Force officers as a jury deliberated over the Jordan Manners murder trial Thursday.Eight men wearing the blue and white colours of the Driftwood Crips were spotted outside the courthouse Wednesday night and Det. Sgt. Mike Barsky arranged for police support units to surround the downtown courthouse.“When people wearing gang colours don’t enter a courthouse (armed with metal and weapons detections systems), it generally means they are packing guns,” Barsky said in an interview Thursday.Jury deliberations will resume Friday, but on Thursday night the jury told Justice Ian Nordheimer in a note:

“We cannot reach a unanimous verdict on either accused man.”The judge sent the jury members to the hotel overnight after exhorting them to continue to try to reach an unanimous decision.Fifteen gang members showed up at 7 a.m. Thursday and a 9-1-1 call was made. When police arrived, none were in sight.“It’s possible the doors weren’t yet open to the public and the men simply left for coffee,” Barsky said.He said there was no evidence anyone “planned to smuggle firearms into the courthouse. I haven’t heard anything but a rumour of a gun smuggle except from a reporter’s question.“If I heard it, I’d say it.”Jury members asked for clarification of the term “reasonable doubt” and whether they could find someone guilty if they had a reasonable doubt. Nordheimer said he couldn’t give any further explanation, saying the jury must acquit if it has a reasonable doubt.

Fifteen-year-old Jordan Manners was gunned down by a shot to his heart at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate on May 23, 2007.The prosecution alleged the accused, J.W. and C.D., grabbed Jordan, then J.W. shot him with a .25 mm handgun, and C.D. rifled through Jordan’s pockets.The accused cannot be named as they were 17 at the time. They have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.The prosecution case was undermined when some key Crown witnesses recanted at trial after giving incriminating evidence against the accused in both police statements and at the preliminary hearing.Crown attorney Tom Lissaman said in his closing address that fear took three key Crown witnesses hostage when they denied seeing “the terrible event” of Manners collapsing from a bullet wound.

“Don’t allow that fear of these girls to come to this court and hold the truth hostage. Jordan Manners deserves much more than that,” Lissaman said.He urged the jury to convict two 20-year-old men on trial for first-degree murder in the death of the Grade 9 student.Defence lawyers argued the prosecution failed to meet “its onus of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt.”Donald McLeod, in his closing address, said his client, J.W., was friends with Jordan.Defence lawyer Lydia Riva, who represents the other accused man, said witnesses offered conflicting testimony based on “gossip and rumours, not actually truth.”

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