After 13 years in custody, Jason Wisdom is a free man — but his thoughts are still troubled by what he feels was the wrongfulness of his conviction.Wisdom, 32, who was convicted of first-degree murder in a shooting tied to the notorious Galloway Boys gang, believes the jury found him guilty not because the Crown proved he was one of the triggermen, but based on evidence he was in a gang, sold drugs and kept “bad company.” “There’s three large black guys there (in the prisoners’ box) — better just to say guilty than let a murderer out free,” Wisdom said. “That’s the last thing the public wants.”In an interview last week in the midtown Toronto office of his lawyer, James Lockyer — who argued the appeal that led to Wisdom’s release a day earlier — he reflected on the ordeal.Eight summers ago, Wisdom and co-accused Tyshan Riley and Philip Atkins yelled and pounded the Plexiglas dividers separating them after jurors found them guilty of murder, attempted murder and murder to benefit a criminal organization — a band of hardscrabble youth known as the Galloway Boys.It had been the largest street gang prosecution in Canadian history.The Crown’s theory was that the drive-by shooting was a case of mistaken identity, alleging that Riley — the gang’s leader — his close associate Atkins and Wisdom ambushed a vehicle, believing the occupants were rival gang members from Malvern, a neighbourhood in the northeastern part of the city.Riley and Atkins did not testify. But Wisdom did, and admitted he’d become involved in “criminal activity” after dropping out of high school — preferring the more lucrative dollars that came from selling drugs to the money earned washing dishes at a local restaurant.When it came to the double shooting, Wisdom addressed the jury directly. He said he was not one of the shooters who killed Brenton Charlton or serious ...
|
