Parole records reveal troubled, violent past of accused in Yorkdale GO shooting

The man charged with first-degree murder in a GO bus shooting near Yorkdale mall earlier this month was previously identified as a “high-risk, high-needs offender with low reintegration potential,” Parole Board of Canada documents obtained by CBC News reveal.  

Tyrel Gibson made his first court appearance in the Jan. 4 shooting two weeks ago — six months after he finished serving time in federal prison on unrelated charges.

Gibson served his entire eight-year, four-month sentence for six charges, including two counts of aggravated assault and discharge of a restricted/prohibited firearm with intent, according to his parole documents. He was also handed a lifetime weapons ban.

The 40-year-old’s parole documents provide a window into his life — touching on both his Indigenous identity and difficult upbringing, as well as his struggles with drug use and his time in prison, where he refused rehabilitation and was often violent.    

Gibson was meant to serve the last part of his sentence on statutory release, which would allow him to be in the community, under supervision and specific conditions. Federal offenders who are serving a fixed prison sentence are required by law to get this option, according to Corrections Canada. 

Gibson broke the conditions of his statutory release more than once, his parole documents detail. In his most recent parole document, Corrections Canada recommended that his suspension on his statutory release should remain. The parole board chose to cancel the suspension and let him back into the community.   

“[It] is clear that your behaviour while in the community was inappropriate, but there is not a determination that there has been a change in your behaviour or attitude which elevates your risk to reoffend,” reads the parole board’s 2025 decision. 

Nearly six months after he served his sentence, Gibson was charged with first-degree murder.

Gibson was arrested on Jan. 4, according to a Toronto police news release. It is alleged he boarded a bus at GO Transit’s Yorkdale terminal and shot a man — identified by police as Osemwengie Irorere, of Nigeria. Irorere was pronounced dead at the scene. He was the city’s first homicide of 2026.  

Both Gibson’s grandmother and great-grandmother are Mi’kmaq and his great-grandfather was Mohawk, his parole records show. His grandmother took custody of him because his mother struggled with drug addiction. 

The documents note that Gibson’s grandmother was a residential school survivor, and that he reported being raised in a “hostile and crime ridden area.” 

“There can be little doubt that you have been negatively impacted by the inter-generational effects of colonialization, in particular the residential schools system,” reads a parole document from 2020.

During his teenage years, Gibson was sent to live with a man he thought was his biological father, only to later find out that he wasn’t. Per his parole records, Gibson reported that the man was an abusive alcoholic and Gibson eventually ran away to the Children’s Aid Society.

Gibson’s criminal behaviour could be linked to his upbringing, said Anna Corrigal Flaminio, a Métis lawyer and associate professor in criminology and law at Toronto Metropolitan University.