Mario Giddings was supposed to start Grade 11 at Weston Collegiate Institute on Tuesday morning.
Instead, those who knew and loved him are mourning his death.
The 15-year-old boy was fatally shot on Monday evening in the parking lot of a plaza just across the street from the 12 Division police station, near Black Creek and Trethewey drives.
Toronto police said they were called to that area at 7:46 p.m. for reports of a shooting.
At the scene, officers found the victim suffering from gunshot wounds and performed life-saving measures, Duty Insp. Dan Pravica told reporters at the scene on Monday night.
Mario was taken to the hospital via emergency run, but was pronounced dead a short time later.
Toronto Police Service (TPS) said that a dark-coloured vehicle was seen entering the plaza moments before a gun was fired. The four-door vehicle then fled the area, they said.
Pravica said that more details about suspect(s) should be available once investigators review surveillance video from the area. At this time, police have not provided any suspect descriptions or details about what may have motivated the incident.
A male has been taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries following a shooting near Black Creek and Trethewey drives on Sept. 2. (Jacon Estrin/CTV News Toronto)
On Tuesday afternoon, Insp. Ted Lioumanis of the homicide unit said that multiple rounds were fired at Giddings, who was believed to be targeted in the shooting.
“At this point, the investigative team is out there currently. Right now, I can appreciate it’s very early on in the investigation, and yesterday, being a holiday, lot of the businesses were closed, so therefore the video canvas, pretty much has started. So we are gathering as much information as we can at this point,” he said.
Toronto’s 59th murder victim of 2024 has been identified as Mario Giddings, 15, of Toronto. (Supplied)
Fortunada Giddings is Mario’s aunt and guardian.
“What I want is justice for him. I want the police to arrest that person who do that to (Mario) because he didn’t deserve to die like that,” she told CTV News Toronto on Tuesday afternoon.
Giddings said she’d been looking after Mario for five years as his parents live in St. Lucia.
They live in an apartment building next door to the plaza where the shooting occurred and she actually saw medics giving CPR to a victim on Mondy evening, but had no idea that it was her 15-year-old nephew.
“I could not believe that I am there looking at him dying and I didn’t know it was him. I didn’t know,” said the teen’s heartbroken aunt.
Giddings said Mario had told her that he was afraid to go to school because he’d been in a fight and was fearful that he’d be found.
“He was afraid to go there because I think he had a fight with a few of them,” she said.
“And then he told me that I had to look for another place for him to go to school because those boys will come back to me.”
Tanya John’s sons were close friends with Mario. She said there’d been trouble with a group from another neighbourhood.
John said she received a call on Monday evening from her daughter letting her know that something had happened to Mario, that he was on the ground and had been shot.
“No where around here is safe right now because the kids that live on Weston Road are beefing with the kids around here,” she said.
John said she went to The CNE with her kids on Monday and thought about taking Mario.
“I was driving. I wanted to turn back. I wish I did turn back and wake him up and just tell him the come, go with us. Come and go and try some rides and have some fun,” she said tearfully.
“Yesterday, it was the worst time of my life. I enjoyed myself with my kids, but at the end it was just so sad. It was just so, so sad.”
FLeft, Mario Giddings aunt/guardian, Fortunada Giddings, along with Tanya John, whose sons were his close friends, are devastated by the teen murder.
Police investigating 11 shootings, 3 fatal, over the long weekend
It was a violent long weekend in the city with 11 shootings across 10 police divisions, said Insp. Paul Krawczyk, of TPS’s Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force.
During a Tuesday afternoon news conference, Krawczyk said that police responded to five firearm discharges, three shootings with injuries, and three homicides.
They also seized six guns and laid charges against six people in relation to them, he said.
Toronto police seized six guns and laid charges against six people in relation to them over the Labour Day weekend.
“Five of these discharges and shootings happened on Sunday, September 2 alone. These shootings took place from one end of the city to the other, and at this time, we do not have information that they are linked in a way,” said Krawczyk.
“I appreciate that events like these can spread fear in the community. We continue to work closely with the city and our community partners in order to get to the root cause of the issue.”
He stressed that police need the public’s help to “disrupt this violence.”
“If you see something that doesn’t seem right, if you know someone that you believe has a firearm, please call the police or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS (8477). If you see something, say something,” he said.
Centre Insp. Paul Krawczyk, of TPS’s Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force, along with Supt. Paul McIntyre of the organized crime enforcement unit spoke during a Sept. 3 news conference following a rash of gun violence over the Labour Day weekend in Toronto.
Supt. Paul McIntyre of the organized crime enforcement unit said Toronto police are taking an “intelligence-led, all-hands-on-deck approach to combating (gun) violence” in the city.
He said that so far this year police have seized 491 crime guns, 85 per cent of which come from the United States, adding that both detectives and uniform officers have been deployed to address gun violence in the city.
He noted that TPS’s community partners and engagement unit has a number of programs to help youth stay involved in the community, and keep them out of trouble and continue attending school.
Neighbourhood community officers are also embedded in the community throughout TPS’s 16 divisions talking with youth, community members, and parents.
Further, McIntyre pointed to breakfast and after school programs for children, which he said are other ways to “keep kids safe and give them the upper hand.”
On the detective side of things, he said that a “full shooting team” was deployed to every incident that occurred over the weekend to “assist the divisions with the investigations.”
“I can tell you right now that some of these shootings on the weekend, we have leads on and we’re actively working them right now, and we expect to get some arrests from that,” McIntyre said, adding that police are “making great strides in solving a good percentage” of them, while also working to help vulnerable kids exit gangs.
“We are deploying our people where they should be. We are following up and working with our youth and we’re doing what we can.”
Anyone with further information about any of these incidents is asked to contact Toronto police or Crime Stoppers anonymously.
With files from CTV News Toronto’s Sean Leathong