HUNTER: Suspect accused of subway slaying out on release: Source

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Law enforcement sources say the homeless man accused in the random murder of a Toronto teen on the TTC was “out on numerous releases.”

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“This,” a detective close to the investigation told The Toronto Sun, “is a full-on justice system failure.”

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According to cops, around 9 p.m. Saturday at Keele TTC station, Gabriel Magalhaes, 16, was sitting on a bench in the west-end station when he was stabbed in an “unprovoked” attack.

The teenager was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries and later died there. Dead at 16.

The suspect — identified as Jordan O’Brien-Tobin, 22, of no fixed address — faces a charge of first-degree murder.

“He’s currently out on numerous releases,” the police source said. “Probation, prohibited, bail … name it, he’s been released on it.”

Now, O’Brien-Tobin has hit the big time, although none of the charges have been proven in court.

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O’Brien-Tobin is originally from the East Coast and was living on the streets of Toronto. His many various interactions with law enforcement were “all different.”

“This is a combination of drugs and mental illness issues, all these releases,” the police source said. “But why, why in God’s name was he out on the streets?”

The murder of Magalhaes, according to cops, is the second unprovoked slaying at a west-end station in the past 3 1/2 months.

In early December, 31-year-old Vanessa Kurpiewska was stabbed to death with an ice pick and her friend was wounded at High Park station.

“I saw a man in the corner of the subway car holding what appeared to be a sharp instrument, like an ice pick, and he was being prevented from leaving the train by another man,” a witness told the Sun at the time.

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Neng Jia Jin, 52, was charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Elsewhere, on the beleaguered transit system, there have been countless violent incidents that have made riders wary of stepping onto the TTC, once considered the best system in North America.

No more.

Late Sunday, around 11:45 p.m., on a TTC bus in the west/midtown area near Keele St., a man was stabbed. This time, cops say, the suspect and victim were known to each other.

My strapping 16-year-old and his pals now travel the transit system in groups. “Too many crazies on the subway,” my boy noted.

I can remember a time when I was nine years old and my parents would put me on the train in Belleville to visit my grandfather who lived in Toronto. Armed with a stack of comics and protected by one of my dad’s conductor buddies, my grandfather would meet me at Union station.

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If he couldn’t, I’d take the subway to Yonge and Bloor to meet my aunt. “Crazies” were few and far between at the time.

Not now.

Even among this city’s homicide detectives (the unit is boasting a 100% clearance rate in 2023) there is fear for their children.

“That’s the debate right now in the room,” one veteran detective told the Sun. “The Go train is fine, the TTC … we’re not so sure about the subways.”

He added: “We’re about 10 years behind New York City … now you can see what’s coming down the road and it’s very ugly.”

New York started coming off the rails in the late 1970s, kicking off a bloodbath that only ended in the mid-1990s. At its peak, the Big Apple was clocking in 2,200 homicides per year by 1992.

“With the justice system, the way it is now, it’s going to be a disaster. Add in that Toronto has the lowest percentage of cops per 100,000 there are going to be a lot of dead people,” said the source.

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@HunterTOSun