A Toronto Star report claims hitmen in Canada are now younger, cheaper to hire, “more violent and more plentiful than just a decade ago.”
The report quoted retired organized crime investigator Pietro Poletti commenting on the June 11, 2026, slaying of Constable Marc Pinizzotto, allegedly by a 19-year-old.
Poletti said, “This is ridiculous now.”
He added, “This is a new phenomenon in Canada.”
The Toronto Police Service noted that Pinizzotto “was killed in the line of duty this morning while executing a high-risk search warrant.” One 19-year-old is in custody in connection with the Pinizzotto’s death and a second 19-year-old is being sought.
Poletti spoke to the Toronto Star about the use of teenagers as hitmen, noting that it did not used to be that way.
He said, “The [Hells Angels] would hire adults. They wouldn’t hire juveniles.” He indicated the Sicilian Mafia also steered clear of hiring teenage gunmen.
Toronto, ON – June 11: Emergency response personnel and citizens gather on the Avenue Road Bridge as a motorcade escorts the body of Toronto police officer Marc Pinizzotto, 43, murdered while conducting a search warrant, along the 401 to the city’s morgue in North York. (Nick Lachance/Toronto Star via Getty)
Poletti said that now street gangs are hired for less than $2,000 to shoot up businesses and some of the triggermen are as young as 14 to 16 years of age. The people hiring such young gunmen benefit from the fact that if those gunmen are caught, they do not know enough to reveal any real information to police.
Canada has some of the most stringent gun controls in the world, including a 2020 ban on thousands of specific guns.
CTV News noted that Canada’s “federal government outlawed approximately 2,500 types of guns it calls assault-style firearms” since May 2020 alone.
On June 6, 2022, Breitbart News reported on then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement that he would be freezing all handgun purchases. The Hill observed that Trudeau’s gun control contained “a national freeze on the sale, purchase and transfer of handguns.”
These gun controls have not stopped teenage hitmen.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.