Delauntae Bryant, 24, and Eric Rowe, 20, have been identified as the city’s 52nd and 53rd murder victims of the year

A Niagara Falls man in town to celebrate his 24th birthday was among two victims killed as gunmen shot up the Jane-Finch corridor Tuesday night, says a family member of one of the dead men.
A teenage boy was in initially wounded when gunmen opened fire around 8:20 p.m. on Venetian Cres., just south of Jane St. and Finch Ave.

“The men then fired a number of rounds at a teenage boy,” Const. Jenifferjit Sidhu said Wednesday, explaining the boy suffered “multiple wounds before escaping.”

Then around 9:05 p.m., she said, the same armed men shot up homes at 2010 Sheppard Ave. W. — a townhouse complex just west of Jane St. No one was injured in that incident.

Officers were still investigating the first two shootings when another volley of gunshots rang out around 9:30 p.m. at 306 Grandravine Dr. — a government housing complex about 900 metres south of the first scene.

Cops responded to that scene and found two men gravely wounded in front of a townhouse that was riddled with bullet holes.

Sidhu said the two victims were in the complex’s courtyard “when the same men fired a number of rounds at them.”

The two men were rushed to hospital where they died.

Delauntae Bryant, 24, and Eric Rowe, 20, have been identified as the city’s 52nd and 53rd murder victims of the year.

A visibly distraught man at the townhouse complex Wednesday morning said Bryant was his older brother and he lived in Niagara Falls where he worked in construction. The man, who also lives in the Niagara Falls area but did not give his name, said his brother was in the city to celebrate his birthday and stopped by the complex to visit family because he was having car trouble.

“He was a good youth,” the man said of Bryant. “I think he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Shortly before the shooting, he said he spoke to his brother by phone and agreed to pick him up to take him out for his birthday. He arrived at the complex to find his brother and another male on the ground in the courtyard suffering from gunshot wounds and surrounded by cops.

“He was shot in the head,” the emotional man said. “But he was looking at me … and he scratched his nose.”

He was stunned to learn later that his brother, whose white Ford Escape was still parked in a nearby laneway Wednesday morning, didn’t survive.

A unit near where the victims were shot was hit by at least eight rounds — three of which pierced a window narrowly missing a man who was reportedly cooking in his kitchen.
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