Cops probe Mafia link in double slaying Video

MONTREAL – Was the attempt to kill Ducarme Joseph somehow related to the hit on Nick Rizzuto Jr. just after Christmas? Experts inside and outside the Montreal police department agree there could be all kinds of motives behind the March 19th attempted assassination of Joseph – who sometimes identifies himself as Joseph Ducarme. Joseph himself survived the hit, ducking out the back door of the St. Jacques Street building when two men entered the store, firing guns.

Two people were killed, including Joseph's driver and bodyguard, Peter Christopoulos, 27. Two people were injured, including a 31-year old electrician who was doing renovations in the store. Both are in stable condition.
Joseph, for his part, returned to his store, to the surprise of police who were still on the scene investigating. The police found a Rastafarian-style wig discarded as the suspects fled on foot, several guns, a glove and surveillance tapes, said Montreal police Inspector Charles Mailloux, of the special investigations unit.Mailloux refused to draw any links between Rizzuto's death and the shooting at Joseph's store Thursday. Retaliation is "one of the possible scenarios among many," Mailloux said.

Stephen Schneider, author of Iced: A History of Organized Crime in Canada and a professor of criminology at St. Mary's University in Halifax, had several other, no less colourful, scenarios, however.
"There really is a power vacuum in Montreal with (Vito) Rizzuto in jail and no clear successor. … I'm also wondering to what extent these killings relate to corruption in the construction industry and in the municipal government.Is (Joseph) someone who has been cooperating with police and providing them with information?"

The more obvious answer is that Joseph, reputed to be linked to the Bloods street gang, was trying to expand the gang's territory from Montreal North into central Montreal, said Julien Sher, an investigative journalist who has written two books on the Hells Angels. "This guy is a relatively fast riser – a new boss in town who has stepped on a lot of toes and pissed off a lot of people." One of Joseph's sidekicks is dead, Sher continued, another is in a wheelchair, after being shot in a bar on the same street in Old Montreal.

"He leaves a trail of blood behind him, and leading to him." Maria Mourani, the Bloc Québécois MP for Ahuntsic who wrote a book about street-gang life in Montreal – La face cachée des gangs de rue – is convinced the hit has everything to do with the Rizzuto shooting in December, and the serial firebombings of Italian cafés.
"Everything is linked. It's an escalation of the conflict and violence. It didn't start yesterday, it started with shootings in cafés in 2008." Mourani said the Italian clan is divided, but so are its enforcers, the Bloods, also known as the Reds.

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