The owner of an Old Montreal clothing store where a daytime shooting claimed the lives of two men and left two others in hospital has reportedly been arrested.
Ducarme Joseph, 41, who is known to police, was allegedly picked up by police on Upper Lachine Rd. in Notre Dame de Grace Friday afternoon.
The area is also close to the site where Nick Rizzuto Jr., the son of reputed Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto, was killed on Dec. 28.
Police will not confirm Joseph's arrest, but say a man who was at the scene of Thursday's shooting has been picked up on breach of bail conditions.
The man will appear via videoconference before the court Saturday.
Witnesses say police were known to keep a close watch on the area outside the offices of FTM Construction, owned by business magnate Toni Magi, on the NDG intersection where the man was apprehended.
Deadly shooting
Thursday's deadly shooting paralyzed Old Montreal, and police sources say was possibly linked to a violent feud involving Canada's most prominent Mafia family.
Two men were shot dead and two others injured in a hail of gunfire that prompted a police shutdown of the historic streets near the landmark Notre-Dame Basilica.
Police say the shooting at the Fawnego boutique on St. Jacques St. west was professionally planned and they have theories about who was targeted. Const. Anie Lemieux says police had already been keeping an eye on the boutique well before the shooting.
Two men were killed and two were injured when gunmen, wearing disguises, stormed into the boutique and opened fire.
Lemieux says three of the four men were known to police. One of the men is Peter Christopoulos, alleged to be Joseph's bodyguard and driver. Friends of the fourth man, who was injured, have told media he was an electrician in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ducarme out on bail
Legal records obtained by CTV find a Ducarme Joseph pleaded not guilty in January to charges of assault with a weapon or assault causing bodily harm in connection with an incident which occurred in September 2009.
The conditions of his bail stated he was not permitted to communicate with any of the four men co-accused in the case, including Christopoulos, without lawyer present and anyone associated with street gangs.
Joseph also pleaded guilty in 1986 to the fraudulent sale of real estate property. He was also accused of intimidation in 1988.
Rizzuto link
Police sources say the shooting may be linked to the December killing of Nick Rizzuto, and could be seen as retaliation for the attack.
On the record, however, police are refusing to discuss the possibility of a Rizzuto connection.
Suspects fled
Witnesses said the shooting suspects escaped the area on foot, walking at a brisk pace and shedding parts of their disguise as they fled. They discarded clothes and a Rastafarian-style dreadlocked wig on a nearby sidewalk.
Police sources said they were exploring possible links to another daytime shooting that recently shocked Montreal: the murder of the eldest son to reputed Mob boss Vito Rizzuto three months ago.
Blood
The Flawnego clothing store specializes in haute couture for men and women. Large drops of blood were spattered across the floor and stairs leading into the building.
"There was blood in the lobby," said one man, Charles Thomas, who refused to give his family name.
"There were about 15 drops of blood in the exterior lobby. . . As big as quarters."
One of the shooting victims was immediately declared dead in the store. Another man, in his late 20s, died later in hospital. Police did not identify either man.
Payback
Crime analysts have been predicting reprisals since the younger Rizzuto was killed in December. No arrests have been made in that slaying.
That killing was considered an unprecedented, symbolic swipe at the powerful family patriarch.
Vito Rizzuto is in a medium-security prison in Colorado serving a 10-year sentence for racketeering, relating to three underworld murders in Brooklyn in 1981. He is scheduled to be released on Oct. 6, 2012.
In recent months, police have said they are exploring a variety of possible theories about a Mafia turf war.
They include a power struggle pitting Montreal's mobsters versus Toronto's, and a possible battle between Calabrian families and the Rizzutos' Sicilian clan.
With a report from The Canadian Press