Anybody who was in Toronto in 1994 will remember the Just Desserts case. On April 5 of that year, three young Black men entered a cafe in the downtown area intending to carry out an armed robbery. In the process one of the patrons, a Greek-Canadian girl named Georgina Leimonis, was shot and killed.
The shooting generated outrage throughout the city. The indignation grew further when it was discovered that one of the suspects, “Tiger†O’Neil Grant, had earlier been ordered deported to his native Jamaica for committing a series of crimes, including assault with a weapon. While he was ultimately acquitted of all charges in connection with the Just Desserts incident, in 2002 he was sent back to the country in which he was born.
O’Neil Grant’s name surfaced once again at the beginning of this month. In the November 12 issue of the Toronto Star, Sandro Contenta reported that Grant had been shot dead in Kingston, Jamaica on October 29 2007. His murder has remained unsolved: some speculated that the shooting was ordered from Toronto, others that Grant, who was romantically involved with two women at the same time, was killed as part of a love triangle.
Contenta portrayed O’Neil Grant as a good boy who had taken a few wrong turns along the way. Though Contenta admitted that before the Just Desserts acquittal Grant had not been a model immigrant, he had since then shaped up, caring for his aged grandmother, finding a steady job, and, perhaps more importantly, not racking up any criminal record in Jamaica. Grant had always hoped to return to Canada, “the greatest country in the world†in his own words, and felt betrayed by the Canadian justice system that ultimately deported him. The Star article contained a photograph of Grant’s youngest child, a baby born five days after his death, as if to remind readers of those he left behind.
A much more inflammatory piece appeared in Toronto’s NOW Magazine by senior editor Enzo DiMatteo. Asking rhetorically “Should the pols who ran Just Desserts accused out of town bear some blame for O’Neil Grant’s fate?, DiMatteo depicted Grant as a scapegoat for the “anti-black immigration hysteria” fomented by the police and ruling class following the Just Desserts incident. In addition Grant was supposedly traumatized by his nearly six-year stay in the Don Jail while awaiting trial. DiMatteo cast particular blame on former Immigration Minister Sergio Marchi, who stated that Grant should have been deported long before the shooting.
On the other side of the spectrum, in an article in the Toronto Sun Joe Warmington scoffed at the portrayal of O’Neil Grant as a victim, either in life or in death. The real victim, according to Warmington, was Georgina Leimonis. Warmington spoke scathingly of efforts by friends and family to bring Grant’s body back to Canada for burial.
I have followed the Just Desserts case since its beginning (incidentally, at the time it occurred I was house-sitting for a friend just around the corner from the cafe), so I will make some comments on the three stories mentioned above. It is true that as in the Jane Creba murder eleven years later, White racists used Georgina Leimonis’ death to grind their own axes, although unlike Enzo DiMatteo I don’t believe they were spurred on by politicians or the police. For example, at a makeshift memorial for her at the site someone left a sign saying, “Kill your own. Leave us alone.†(Ironically, at the beginning of the last century some American White Supremacists opposed immigration by Greeks and other groups such as Jews and Syrians on the grounds that the United States should be for the”White man.”)
I have trouble with DiMatteo’s and Contenta’s picture of O’Neil Grant as a victim. If Grant really did turn his life around as Contenta claimed, he (Grant) should be given some credit. Yet even if Grant did not pull the trigger of the gun that caused Leimonis’ demise, surely he knew what his companions were doing when they set foot in the Just Desserts café and was aware that in any armed robbery the chances of someone getting killed or seriously injured are high. While he expressed bitterness over what he saw as a betrayal by the Canadian authorities, Grant never once appeared to express sympathy for Georgina Leimonis or her family. I might feel sorry for Grant over the fact he died violently at a young age, but not over his inability to return to Canada. Similarly questionable, in my view, was the notion perpetrated by DiMatteo and Contenta that Grant was shipped to a “strange country” (i.e. Jamaica). In fact Grant had spent most of his formative years there (he came to Canada at the age of twelve) and was familiar with the language and culture of that nation, which are basically the same as those of Anglophone Canada. It is not as if Grant had been deported to Japan, a country with a completely different culture which does not even use the same writing system as Canada and most other Western nations.
On other hand, I’m not completely in tune with Joe Warmingtonâ’s portrayal of Grant as if he were second in command to Satan himself. Grant was after all acquitted of any direct responsibility in Leimonis’ death. I also believe that if Grant’s family wants to bring his body back to Canada, they should be free to do so (how dangerous is a dead man?) as long as they pay for the expenses out of their own, as opposed to the taxpayers’, pocket.
With regard to Enzo DiMatteo’s question - should the politicians who sent Grant back to Jamaica be held morally and/or legally responsible for his death - my answer is a resounding no. As I’ve written in a previous essay, individuals found guilty of a crime committed in a country not their own (that is, of which they are not citizens) forfeit their right to reside there. Canada was right to deport him, and I’ll even agree with Sergio Marchi, of whom I was by the way no great fan, that Grant should have been thrown out much earlier. Not that it would have saved Leimonis’ life, but at the very least it would have spared us the expense of keeping Grant in prison and putting him on trial.
These are my observations on the story of O’Neil Grant. Please feel free to add your own.
I’m sure Emilia can defend herself just fine, but even if I didn’t know her it’s plain from the article that:
1) She disagreed with the racist overtones that some people used when speaking about the case
2) She thinks your father was not nearly the devil that some more popular columnists made him out to be (did you write to Joe Warmington?)
On the other hand, your father DIDN’T show any remorse for his crimes (neither did you as a family member) and chose to get involved with his mischief not long after Toronto set a record for the number of murders in a year. The people had had enough by that time and they wanted to see a crackdown.
First, thank you to Cynapse for defending me. Yes, you are correct: I did object to the racist overtones that some people used when describing the Just Desserts case (example: “Kill your own”). Also, I doubt many of these people really gave a hoot about Georgina Leimonis herself. If it had been three White men who killed her, would they have opened their mouths? Did they grieve about the two (White) women who were killed by Paul Bernardo, a White man? Unlikely, because they would have no political points to score. It should also be noted that Leimonis herself would probably have deplored White supremacists’ use of her death to push their cause. As her Black former supervisor, who attended her funeral, said, “Georgina didn’t see colour.”
To Marcus, I am sorry about your father’s death (I think I said so in my essay). If he turned his life around while in Jamaica, then he should be commended. But I hold fast to my point that Canada was right to deport him. He had accumulated a long criminal record while in this country and had never bothered to obtain citizenship. If I go to the United States, for example, my mother’s birthplace, and commit crimes, then the American authorities have every right to kick me out.
I hold to everything I say in my essay. But thank you for the comments.
Emilia just made my “hit parade” and she’s top of the pile.
Excellent article.
Emelia, the comparison between Grant and Bernardo (ie: victims from different racial group versus same) doesn’t work since Bernardo isn’t an immigrant and that it likely the more key point. Aside from that, all Canadians, regardless of racial origin, were horrified by the criminal acts of Bernardo and Homolka.
First to Mac, sorry, maybe I wasn’t clear, but by comparing Grant to Bernardo what I was trying to say was if the people who wrote “Kill your own” really cared about White women they never knew personally, why didn’t they publicly grieve the deaths of Mahaffey and French, who were White? They didn’t, as in discuss them at length at forums like Stormfront, because they couldn’t prove any point to grind their axes (ex. anti-Black, anti-immigration). So I conclude these people didn’t really care about Leimonis as a person; they just used her to make a political point.
To Marcus again, I hate to contradict you at a time when you are probably grieving, but I’m forced to. I suspect that O’Neil Grant was probably found innocent on a technicality (or so I have heard), and so the courts probably used another technicality (that he failed to notify a change of address) to get him out of Canada. Again, I find it hard to believe that when he went into the Just Desserts cafe he had no idea what his friends were doing. Also, even Di Matteo admitted that Grant had been involved in an altercation while in jail, that marijauana was found in his cell, etc. so it’s unlikely he was completely blameless during the time between his original deportation order and the time he was actually deported.
I’m sorry to be blunt, but this is my view.
That being said, Jane Creba wasn’t even cold before the Liberals (both federal and provincial) were trying to make political (anti-gun) points out of that situation. Does that mean the Liberals are racist or anti-immigrant?
I think whenever there is a tragedy people who in reality couldn’t care less for the victims personally use the event for their own purposes (see my earlier article on the Jane Creba murder; click on “Emilia Liz” at the side of this page and go back to previous entries to find it). Sometimes even people on opposite ends of the political spectrum will do so. For example, in the Creba case racists used her death to show how depraved minorities supposedly were. On the other hand, liberals viewed the shooters as having been driven by racism to embrace a life of crime. Both disgusting reactions, in my view.
Emilia
1. He had been ordered deported BEFORE the incident.
2. The deportation order was a result of crimes including weapons.
3. He took part in armed robbery at Just Desserts.
4. Someone was murdered during that robbery.
5. He was held under suspicion of murder while the trial went on. He was acquitted on murder but he was still there robbing the place whether he was charged or not.
6. He was deported when the trial was over.
Troublemaker, doesn’t obey laws, deport him. We don’t need his kind (criminal) here and we need to toughen the laws to get rid of them, revoke citizenship or not allow them in the first place.
Sorry Marcus, I understand where you’re coming from but don’t blame the system for your father’s choices and the resulting consequences.
God bless Heather my Dads Lawyer
We love you
my father WAS ordered deported, but was rightfully granted a stay because at that moment MY FATHER CHANGED HIS LIFE for the better because he did not wanna get deported…..THen he is charged with a crime he did not do.Spends 6years almost away from me..HE WAS ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES………SO I ask WHY DID MY DAD GET DEPORTED?……HE did NOT GET into trouble….HE WAS WRONgfully accused and then WRONGFULLY DEPORTED…….
1) Grant was not punished for the GOOD things he did in life. The law is more interested in the BAD things, of which no one has denied
2) Similarly, no one here has denied that he should have already been thrown out of the country according to Immigration Canada. Whether or not he was acquitted of the Just Desserts slaying is therefore meaningless.
3) Grant was “rapped” (I’m assuming you mean raped or robbed) of 6 years for a crime he at least participated into some extent by virtue of his presence. How much time has Lemonis lost for doing absolutely nothing?
Listen, I appreciate that Grant was a father/brother/etc but to the majority of Canadians he is a predator who played at least a minor role in a senseless shooting of someone that could have been any innocent person. This is the problem with shooting people OUTSIDE the criminal game. People wouldn’t be making such a fuss if the shooting had been of another criminal or someone in the underground.
Does racism play a role? I think so and obviously the author of this article does as well. But it is unrealistic for you two to think that people are going to see him as some sort of abused saint for a few “nice things” he may have done for people he knew (and obviously cared about). Even Pablo Escobar had his defenders.
Finally, you guys are barking up the wrong tree with these racism accusations. There are real racists posting on the Globe forums, who will say unmistakable things about Grant and all Jamaicans/blacks/etc as a result of a few criminal acts. My advice to you is to use that serious charge sparingly, so that people continue to take it seriously.
Now Have A Great Day…
I feel sympathy for the many law-abiding Blacks in this city who are nonetheless viewed with suspicion, stopped by police, etcetera solely because of their skin colour. I have had at least two Black (male) friends who have reported this experience, even though as far as I know neither has even had a speeding ticket. Neither of them are bitter; they just seem resigned to the fact of being routinely stopped. I personally believe they should be more upset than they are. However, I also believe that Blacks who defend people like O’Neil Grant aren’t doing any favour to their community either.
in retrospect to the incident that happened in 1994, i think you have been deeply influenced by the media, and your peers. i’m not persuaded by reasons given that oneil grant should have been deported. they are weak reasons that are independent of rationality. i think you need to start deliberating for yourself, and free yourself from the influence instilled in you via the media.
you have never met mr.grant, yet you have so much to say. i think it is safe to call the media a drug. the news is running a monopoly on your sub-concious mind. you cant even think for yourself. merry christmas
i think at this time we need to forward our concerns to the mississauga teen that got murdered by her father.
my condolences…
Immigration was not designed to solve social problems from the third world; it was designed to strengthen the economy. People emigrate here need to remember that, and thankfully the majority do.
And yes, condolences to the teen who was murdered. Unfortunately, this is another case of migrants not respecting the local laws and customs.
I go by my previous statement and say deporting O’Neil Grant was the right decision.
Respect to:
Tracey&West Kingston
I respect the fact that you are grieving your father’s death. I like to think that he indeed turned his life around while in Jamaica. Unfortunately, though, the law is the law, and he chose to break it. He might have thought over the consequences of his actions when he decided to become involved in crime. Still, I believe that even if we do commit crimes, we all have the chance to redeem ourselves in this life. The law, however, can’t take account of changes of heart. I know what I am saying will not make you feel good, but it is my opinion.
Emilia
Thank You Marcus,Tracy,West Kingston.
A just end to a piece of garbage.
May you rot in hell O’neil Grant with the rest of the vermin which you spawn.
I changed my life from back then, I’m sure Grant could of or did also.
Marcus, I met your father in lock up. I played soccor in the yard. I always wondered what happened to Grant once he got out. I was sad to see he died being shot. We all have done things we regret or got mixed up in. RIP Tiger.