Police consider organized-crime links in Repentigny arsons: police
Fire flared at 3:50 a.m. Friday in latest pizza-joint attack
By JAN RAVENSBERGEN, THE GAZETTE
April 12, 2013MONTREAL — Police in Repentigny are “exploring all possibilities” — including organized-crime involvement — following the third firebombing during the past seven weeks of a local pizza restaurant.
The community is off the eastern tip of Montreal Island.
Asked specifically whether any type of shakedown racket or protection ring could be at the root of the emerging pattern, Sgt. Bruno Marier of Repentigny police responded that this has not been eliminated. He declined to elaborate.
The freshest attack, called in by a passerby at 3:50 a.m. Friday, targeted the Domino’s Pizza outlet on Notre Dame St., near Moncana Blvd. and the Parc de l’Île Lebel in the St. Lawrence River. The same pizza spot was hit, and in the same way, about 1 a.m. Feb. 27, 2013 Marier said.
The middle arson of the trio, at 3:30 a.m. March 10, damaged the Lo Dico pizza restaurant on Iberville Blvd., corner Beauchesne St.
No injuries were reported in connection to any of the incidents.
Friday’s firebombing, in which a large front display-type window was broken, left significant smoke and water damage in the table area at the Domino’s streetfront side: “It didn’t touch the kitchen in the back,” Marier said.
Eight apartments in the building were evacuated. No immediate estimate of monetary damages was available. Police crime-scene technicians were still gathering evidence of any accelerants, Marier said in mid-morning.
The Domino’s franchise had been run without any previous such incidents, and owned by the same man throughout, since it was established at least a decade ago, Marier said.
That owner has told investigators he hasn’t received any threats and wasn’t aware of any disgruntled former employee, Marier said.
The owner of the Lo Dico, meanwhile, had been quietly running the business for longer, “easily at least 15 years,” Marier said.
He has told police much the same thing, the police spokesperson added:
“They both don’t understand why they have become the victims.”
The firebombings were carried out “with the same modus operandi,” Marier noted, and clearly appear linked.
Thus far, he said, “we have no suspects.”
Montreal had undergone a double wave of similar firebombings — which subsequently subsided.
Marier said Repentigny investigators have “most certainly” been working in tandem with Montreal detectives assigned to the earlier cases, some of which have yielded criminal convictions.
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