It's the fourth murder in less than a month in one west end police division, and this time the victim is a 14-year-old boy.
Paramedics were called to a hydro field near
Scarlett Rd. and Dundas St. just after 5pm Monday, and when they arrived they found the body of Adrian Johnston. He'd been shot three times.
Neighbours found the badly hurt boy, clad in a Runnymede Collegiate jacket, lying in the field. Their attempts at first aid failed, so all they could do was stay with him as he passed away.
"I just tried to put the compressions on his chest until the ambulance came," said witness Melanie Cebry. "One tear I saw and then his eyes rolled back and we all just kept screaming, 'Hang on!'"
"I am sorry that his mother is going to get that kind of knock on the door, but I want her to know that her son was not alone when he died."
The motive for the slaying isn't yet clear but witnesses at the scene said they saw drugs near the body. It's the fourth murder in that part of town in just three weeks but police aren't sure there's a connection.
There's been speculation that Johnston may have been targeted because of the housing complex where he lived. Police are investigating the possibility of fighting between members of that complex and two others, one of which was home to another recent murder victim,
Jarvis St. Remy.
Young folks in the area have supported such a theory.
"The area he lives at, if people don't like it they're going to do something about it," one local suggested. "I really feel this is not the end of it, there's going to be a very large retaliation."
Police aren't so sure, but have yet to rule out the possibility.
"There's no information that I have that would lead us to believe that any of them are linked together," said Det. Brian Borg. "We'll be looking into that obviously because of the fact that there have been a number of other shootings."
Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair spoke out Tuesday, expressing a desire to increase police presence in that area following the spate of gunplay.
"I'm very concerned," he admitted. "There has been a very concentrated, very serious escalation of gun violence in a certain part of our city."
Mayor David Miller also spoke about the tragedy Tuesday.
"Imagine being a mom, your son being gunned down like this, it's just heartbreaking for everybody," he said. "We just simply have to get at the guns and get them off the street."
Police are checking surveillance video from a high-rise on nearby Woolner Avenue after residents saw a tall man in a green baseball cap fleeing the area. But on Tuesday afternoon, police also released the first official public description of the suspect.
He's described as:
- Male,
- Black,
- Darker skin colour,
- 5'6" to 5'7",
- Wearing all black at the time,
- Pants and a hoody on with the hoody up
- A mask that covered his mouth and face for the most part leaving his eyes exposed,
- White swirl design either on the front or the back of the hoody
Meanwhile, sadness pervades the halls at the school the Grade 9 student attended. Runnymede principal Lynn Farqhuarson talked to the victim's distraught parents on Tuesday, and claims they're bearing up as well as can be expected.
Plans to honour their fallen friend haven't yet been confirmed by students, who are still in shock at the slaying. "We are listening to what our students say and listening to our staff, as the days go on certainly we will be involving his family to go forward and in terms of what would be best and how students want to acknowledge and honour Adrian," the principal explains.
She remembers
Adrian
as a "soft spoken young man, who was friendly, polite to administration and his teachers." As to what it's like to have to address young teens about the loss of one of their own? "It is not something I thought that I would ever have to do in my career," she laments.
Call
Crime Stoppers at
1-800-222-TIPS if you can help investigators with this case.
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