An aspiring musician was the victim of a series of shootings on Father’s Day over the weekend that the city’s mayor described as “extremely disturbing”.
Police say they are investigating a total of six different shootings – which left two men dead and two critically injured teenagers – that took place across the city between Friday and Sunday.
A total of eleven people were shot over the weekend, including two incidents that are now being investigated as homicides, police said.
Investigators have identified the victim of a shooting on Sunday in the area of Lotherton Pathway and Caledonia Road, south of Lawrence Avenue West, as Jaron Williams, a 24-year-old Toronto man.
Williams’ father, who did not want to be identified, told CBC News that his son was an aspiring musician and a “beacon of light.”
He said the family was in the area where the shooting took place, for Father’s Day celebrations.
Dozens of people were stopped Monday in the area where a memorial was erected, placing flowers and lighting candles to pay their respects.
Dozens of people fell in front of a memorial facility with flowers and candles in the area where the Father’s Day shooting took place. (Dean Gariepy / CBC)
Police said on Monday that four suspects were seen fleeing the area immediately after the shooting in a vehicle described as a beige or champagne Chevrolet Equinox from 2010 to 2015.
Investigators say they are investigating “potential links” between the deadly shooting and another shooting that occurred a few minutes earlier at Amaranth Court and the Flemington Road area, which left a 43-year-old man hospitalized with gunshot wounds. . Police say he is in serious but stable condition.
Toronto Police Supervisor Steven Watts said during a news conference Monday that there is no “significant danger” to the public at this time. After the violent weekend, Mayor John Tory said on Twitter that “he will continue to support the police, including our arms and gang working group.
“Any armed violence in our city is unacceptable and the fact that there have been several shootings in our city this weekend, including one in which two young children were killed, is extremely disturbing,” Tory said in a series of tweets Monday morning.
I talked to my boss
– @ TorontosMayor
6 shootings all over the city
Police say the first shooting over the weekend took place northwest of the city around 10:40 p.m. Friday, leaving one man dead and another seriously injured.
A few hours later, around 3:20 a.m. Saturday morning, a second incident occurred where a man with multiple gunshot wounds entered a 7-Eleven convenience store in the far north of the city.
Then on Saturday afternoon, police say two teenage boys, ages 15 and 17, were shot several times while standing near a playground in the far west. The two teenagers suffered serious injuries and were rushed to hospital, police said, but are expected to survive.
On Sunday afternoon, police said two teenage boys, ages 15 and 17, were shot and seriously injured as they were near a playground in the far west, near the Humber Boulevard area and Alliance Avenue. (CBC)
Then, Sunday afternoon, around 4:17 p.m., police say a man in northern Toronto was taken to hospital after suffering multiple gunshot wounds. He is now in a life-threatening condition.
Just minutes later, Williams was shot dead.
A sixth shooting took place around 8pm on Sunday, in what police call “an unpunished car meeting” in a car park near McCowan Road and Milner Avenue, north of 401 Highway.
The Toronto police union called for better-funded police services and lamented the “inexplicable trauma” these incidents leave behind, for families, friends, witnesses and lifeguards.
“This level of violence has an inexplicable weight on everyone involved,” the Toronto Police Association Board said Monday in a statement on the weekend’s shootings.
“Our communities want a regular police presence that doesn’t flow or flow with crime rates.”