HUNTER: Murder of TPS cop Marc Pinizzotto harkens Todd Baylis nightmare

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Published Jun 11, 2026  •  Last updated 5 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

Const. Todd Baylis is forever honoured on a monument to fallen police officers outside Charles O. Bick College. Photo by David Lucas /SunMedia

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They sleep soundly in the belief they are doing righteous work, the Lord’s work.

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Murder does not stir them from their slumber. It’s an abstract thing, you see, not something for the elites in their rarefied castles to worry about.

But once, when a cop was murdered, it was — rightly — seen as an attack on society as a whole. Now, Canadian institutions are so ideologically captured that the hoi polloi have concluded that violence, drug addiction, homelessness and a multitude of other societal ills are worries for the little people.

Same tragic gumbo of causes

That has to be why they give bail to violent criminals. Why there are no mandatory minimums for gun crimes (let’s take Uncle Fred’s squirrel rifle!), why foreign crooks, the garden variety and national security threats, aren’t deported el pronto.

And now, another cop has been murdered in Toronto.

Toronto Police at the scene after an officer was shot on Martha Eaton Way on Thursday, June 11, 2026. Photo by Gord Anderson /Toronto Sun

Law enforcement sources told The Toronto Sun that national security, immigration and a laughable bail regime all could be in play in the cold-blooded murder of TPS Const. Marc Pinizzotto, 43, of the Emergency Task Force early Thursday in North York. Pinizzotto was part of a team executing a search warrant looking for guns and drugs.

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In a bitterly ironic twist, nearby is the crime scene where young Toronto cop Todd Baylis was executed in cold blood while on routine patrol on a warm June night in 1994. In that instance, the country’s lax immigration laws got third billing in the outrage.

Toronto Sun front page for Wednesday, June 22, 1994. `HE SERVED US WELL.’ Const. Todd Baylis 1969-1994.

Baylis, 25, was born into the policing world (his dad was a cop) and was marked as an officer to watch. That all ended on June 17, 1994.

The young cop and his partner, Const. Mike Leone, were patrolling a social housing complex in the Trethewey Dr. and Black Creek Dr. area. In a dark corner of the rabbit warren building, they encountered Clinton Gayle.

Gayle had been ordered deported to his native Jamaica two years before for his criminality. He was also wanted for drug trafficking.

If system worked, Baylis would be alive

What ifs can be a mug’s game, but it isn’t a stretch to say that if the system had done its job, Gayle’s ass would be in no position to kill a cop. And for the great and good, there’s a very good reason Clinton Gayle still remains behind bars after 32 years.

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When Baylis and Leone encountered the cop killer, Gayle pulled a gun and shot Leone in the shoulder and back. He punched Baylis, causing him to fall and break his ankle.

And then, while Baylis lay helpless on the filthy, cold concrete, at close range, Gayle executed the young officer with a bullet to the head. Baylis died later in hospital and was posthumously awarded the Police Exemplary Service Medal.

Clinton Gayle. Photo by Files /Toronto Sun

Gayle tried to make it a double cop-killing when he also tried to execute Leone, the partner, but his gun jammed.

How bad a guy is Gayle? In October 2024, even the tres lax Parole Board of Canada torpedoed parole for the cop killer. The panel determined that Gayle remained dangerous and a threat to public safety.

Now, cops say they’re hunting a suspect named Zara Jabbi, 19, and urged him to surrender.

‘Now an officer is dead’

A law enforcement source — who spoke to the Sun on the condition of anonymity — said one of the suspect shooters is the same individual who shot up the U.S. Consulate in March. The man was released on bail in an earlier shooting incident.

“That he was given bail is extremely disturbing and now an officer is dead,” the Sun source said. “Hopefully, this will be the turning point on bail.”

Very close to the crime scene is a memorial to Baylis in Trethewey Park.

A reminder to our self-righteous betters in Parliament, the faculty lounge and caring professions. They’re fast asleep and will continue to be so until the day one of their children is murdered.

[email protected]

@HunterTOSun

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