Charlottetown police capture Toronto man at top of national most-wanted list

Charlottetown police have arrested a man who was listed at the top of a national most-wanted list.

The force said in a news release that its street crime unit, along with the major crime unit and a rapid tactical deployment team, arrested 35-year old Michael Bebee on Tuesday.

Toronto police issued a Canada-wide warrant for Bebee's arrest in connection with the July 23, 2023 shooting death of Shamar Powell-Flowers in Toronto's east end.

On April 23, Bebee was ranked the most wanted man in the country by the Bolo Program, a project run by the Stéphan Crétier Foundation charity, which helps raise awareness about the country's most wanted. The program was offering $100,000 reward for tips.

In the six years the program has been running, 58 people have been featured on its list and 21 of them have been located, said Bolo director Maxime Langlois.

Shamar Powell-Flowers, 29, of Toronto, was the victim of a fatal shooting in Toronto's Greektown neighbourhood in July 2023. (Submitted by Toronto Police Service)

In the release, Charlottetown police say they were contacted last week by the force in Toronto about tips that indicated Bebee might be on P.E.I.

Tuesday evening at around 7:20 p.m., police arrested him without incident at a business on Belvedere Avenue. He was taken to the Provincial Correctional Centre, and will be held there until Toronto homicide detectives arrive to transport him back to Ontario "in the coming days."

In an update to the shooting investigation last fall, police said Powell-Flowers was shot after he intervened in an "altercation" that took place near Danforth and Carlaw avenues in Toronto.

At the time of Shamar's death, Michael Bebee was under a gun prohibition for his part in another Toronto shooting four years earlier, according to Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw.