Police have arrested the alleged getaway driver in three brazen homicides, including one that claimed the life of a 12-year-old bystander.

Dante Andreatta Marroquin was walking with his mother on the west side of Jane Street near Stong Court on the afternoon of Nov. 7 when he was struck by a stray bullet that was fired during a suspected gang-related shooting in a nearby parking lot.

On Nov. 9, two men accused of opening fire on three teenage victims that day in the shooting that killed Andreatta Marroquin were arrested in a dramatic takedown by plainclothes police outside a downtown Toronto Canadian Tire store.

Police, however, continued to look for a third suspect, who they said was the alleged getaway driver in the shooting.

During a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, Det. Hank Idsinga announced that a suspect identified as 27-year-old Cjay Hobbs was taken into custody after getting off a plane in Halifax on Nov. 12 and was returned to Toronto earlier today.

Hobbs has now been charged with first-degree murder in connection with Andreatta’s death.

He is also facing two additional counts of first-degree murder relating to two other homicides in which he allegedly acted as a getaway driver, Idsinga said.

Those incidents include the shooting of 21-year-old Dimarjio Jenkins on a busy downtown sidewalk at King Street West and Blue Jays Way on May 26 and the murder of Hamid Zakarie near Jane Street and Lawrence Avenue on the morning of Oct. 1.

Police have previously said that Zakarie was shot seconds after loading his five-month old baby into the back seat of a vehicle.

The alleged shooters in both the murder of Jenkins and Zakarie remain outstanding.

“We stood here in front of 31 division last week and said we were going to get everybody that was involved in the murder of that 12-year-old and I think we are at that point today,” Idsinga, who is the head of the homicide squad, said in announcing the arrest. “It is a big deal. They are all charged with being a party to offence of murder. It is first-degree murder and if convicted it is mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.”

Idsinga said that all three murders that the suspect is charged in connection with were “gang-related,” though he refused to speculate on “specific motivations.”

He said that the quick arrests following the shooting of Andreatta Marroquin were helped along by some tips from the public and the review of a significant amount of surveillance footage from the scene.

“I don’t think it is any secret that people were just absolutely outraged after Dante was killed,” he said.

Alleged shooters in murder of Jenkins and Zakarie still outstanding

Idsinga said that investigators believe that they now have all three individuals who were “at the actual scene” of the Nov. 7 shooting in custody.

Meanwhile, he said that the investigations into the identities of the shooters in the murders of Jenkins and Zakarie are continuing and that police will certainly be looking at whether the two alleged gunman in Marroquin’s murder could have had any involvement.

As for whether the suspect taken into custody on Nov. 12 could help with the ongoing investigations, Idsinga said that we will just have to wait and see.

“That will be up to Mr. Hobbs,” he said.