A large advertising display sits on the edge of the Gardiner Expressway as it crosses Parklawn Drive in Etobicoke. Images of everything from new bank accounts to laundry detergent flick on it, pushing products to drivers heading in and out of the city.
Recently, it started to carry a different display: three slightly blurry images of men walking down the street alongside a Toronto Police Services badge. Across one image are the words “arrested” in red letters.
The three men are suspects wanted by Toronto police in connection with a fatal daylight shooting in Leslieville, when a stray bullet struck a local mother.
The billboard, urging anyone with information about the suspects to contact police, has been organized by the Canadian Out of Home Marketing and Measurements Bureau (COMMB). It’s a national agency representing people involved in billboards and other outdoor adverts.
The group aims to help police solve the death of Karolina Huebner-Makurat, the Leslieville mother fatally struck by a stray bullet in Toronto’s Leslieville neighbourhood on July 7. Her husband, and father to their two children, Adrian Makurat, works for COMBB as a senior director.
“We came together and thought, (with) Out of Home being such a mass medium, (it) could be advantageous to help facilitate the Toronto Police Services efforts to capture the suspects,” Amanda Dorenberg, president of the organization, told Global News.
Since the tragic shooting, local communities have rallied around. A GoFundMe campaign has surpassed $260,000 and a vigil has also been set up for Monday at 6:30 p.m. in Jimmie Simpson Park to celebrate Huebner-Makurat’s life.
The fatal incident, which happened near Queen Street and Carlaw Avenue just after midday on July 7, began with a fight between three men, police said. Two of the three men had handguns and fired them at each other, investigators said.
One man has been arrested, so far. Officers have charged Damian Hudson, 32, with second-degree murder.
Support that has rallied around the family in the days since the shooting extends to the professional world, Dorenberg said.
“It’s certainly not common for us to offer up our advertising space, but, again, this is so close to home. This is someone from our industry, this is our family,” she said. “We’re a very small community in the Out of Home advertising industry.”