“Keep awake,” her sobbing mother said. “Keep awake.”
Phil looked at his watch, as he waited for help to arrive. Ten minutes passed. Then 20. Then 30.
“She was sucking air,” said Phil, who did not want to give his last name. “Then she took her last two breaths, real quick, then stopped.”
She died. So did a man in his early 20s after a Scarborough gun battle at around 10:40 p.m. Monday night that left at least 19 more — including a toddler, who is now in stable condition — wounded.
“So far we have been able to confirm that 19 people were transported from this location by ambulance to various hospitals throughout the Toronto region for treatment of gunshot wounds,” said Toronto police chief Bill Blair, speaking to reporters a few hours after the shooting on Danzig St., near Morningside Ave. and Lawrence Ave. E.
PHOTOS: Scarborough shooting scene
“Tonight’s event is unprecedented,” said Blair. “The level of violence is something we’ve never experienced.
“This is the worst incident of gunfire in memory.”
The victims range in age from infancy to mid-20s, police said.
The block party — or “blocko,” as many referred to it — is an annual event organized by the community, according to Donna Almarales, 22. This year, the party featured Caribbean barbecue, jerk chicken, DJs and, according to partygoers, the promise of free Hennessey cognac, which drew people from as far away as London, Ont.
Almarales and Jade Hooper, 18, had been at the party for about 20 minutes when they heard the gunshots.
“At first we just thought it was nothing, maybe someone was just playing around,” Almarales said. “And it turned out to be bloodshed.”
From there, it became chaos. As panic rippled through the crowd, people sprinted in every direction, many shouting the names of friends or loved ones.
“We were just looking for dead bodies,” Almarales said.
MORE:Twitter erupts in outrage, sadness over Scarborough shootings
On one side of the road, Almarales spotted a girl lying on the ground. On the other side, there was a young man lying face down. He had blood on his back.
“I tried slapping him to tell him to get up,” she recalled. “He just didn’t move. He didn’t move at all.”
But like several area residents who spoke to the Star, Almarales’s shock was overshadowed by the anger she felt about the police response. Many complained that emergency responders were slow to arrive and take control of the chaotic scene.
Almarales said that at one point, a man was trying to maneuver his car through the mob of people and transport one of the victims to safety. A police officer stopped him and beckoned him out of the car, she said.
“He was grabbing the police officer, (shouting), ‘Do something! Do something!’” she said. “And the cop was just going, ‘Everybody move, move.’ He was just in panic mode. He didn’t know what to do.”
A man named Chris, who declined to give his last name, said paramedics and firefighters quickly jumped on the man, trying to revive him. The man was pronounced dead shortly thereafter and draped with an orange blanket, a lone black Converse sneaker uncovered.
Blair insisted to reporters that there was a quick response to the scene with ambulances arriving “within minutes.” Police officers also came from across the city, he said.
“The response was very rapid and I think was successful in getting the injured to treatment in a very speedy way,” he said.
Toronto EMS deputy chief Garrie Wright said 16 ambulances and an EMS bus were used to carry the wounded to hospital.
“Kids have guns and shouldn’t have guns,” Toronto Community Housing Corporation CEO Gene Jones said at the scene Tuesday morning.
“You guys have stringent gun laws and kids are still getting the opportunity to have guns,” said Jones, who took over TCHC on June 18 after running the public housing corporation in Detroit.
“The sad thing about this is that is my introduction to Toronto.”
About an hour after the shooting, ambulances and police cars were still streaming to the area near Lawrence Ave. E. and Morningside Dr., a mixed neighbourhood of brick high rises, townhouses and single-family homes.
Still-panicked people crowded along the police tape that stretched for blocks, watching as paramedics treated the wounded inside the EMS bus. People screamed and sobbed into cellphones, trying to locate friends or family.
One woman, who was being comforted by friends and wouldn’t give her name, said her 17-year-old niece had been shot in the arm and was being treated on the bus.
Area resident Leighton Robinson said his nephew’s girlfriend, who is in her early 20s, was also shot in the arm. He was at home watching a movie when he received a stricken phone call from his niece, informing him of the shooting.
“Basically, it sickens me,” he said of the violence. “It never used to be this way … the new players in the game are playing it wrong.”
Rumours also began spreading across the neighbourhood, at times igniting emotional outbursts, especially when false information circulated that the toddler wounded by gunfire had died.
Early Tuesday morning, Toronto police released a tweet urging people to stick to the facts.
“THE INFANT HAS NOT DIED!” read the tweet, by @TorontoPolice. “Non-life threatening, stable condition. Please do not report or spread rumours.”
As police investigators began combing the scene for evidence, some residents were openly hostile and cursed at the officers. At one point, an enraged woman looking for her children berated officers and was handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car.
Around 3 a.m., two young men walked through the police line, looking for their friend. Police took them to see the body and when they came back, one said, “That’s my boy.”
They refused to answer further questions.
Claudia Wilson, whose 20-year-old daughter was at the party, said when she came out of their nearby home, all she saw was ambulances.
“It’s really crazy. You just don’t know what to think anymore,” said Wilson, whose daughter was sobbing nearby. Wilson said her daughter’s friend was shot in the arm at the party.
“She was dodging bullets over there,” said Wilson. “They were all in one place and all of a sudden the shots were fired. No one knows where they came from.”
Ameena Yabe, 30, of Pickering, realized as she watched the news on TV Monday night that her cousin could be involved. The 29-year-old was shot and is in Scarborough Grace Hospital.
“It's shocking that something like this could happen,” she said.
Police said the shooting broke out after an altercation, and that more than one person was firing. One handgun was recovered nearby and police have a person of interest who was injured in the gunfire.
Police homicide, intelligence and guns and gangs units are investigating, said Blair.
Victims were taken to various hospitals, including Scarborough Hospital, St. Michael’s Hospital and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
There were six shootings in the 43 Division before Monday’s gunfire, Blair said.
Monday’s deaths were the city’s 27th and 28th homicides of the year.
This is the second time innocent bystanders were wounded in crossfire in recent weeks. On June 2, several bystanders were hit by stray bullets after a gunman opened fire in a crowded food court at Toronto’s Eaton Centre. One man was killed in that incident and another died of his injuries days later.
On June 18, a 35-year-old man was killed in a targeted shooting in Little Italy. One other man was injured.
With files from Alexandra Bosanac, Stephanie Law and Niamh ScallanALSO FROM THE STAR:
Scarborough shooting a ‘sad introduction’ to Toronto for public housing chief
TORONTO SHOOTINGS THIS SUMMER
Monday night’s shooting rampage is the fourth incident this summer:
Eaton Centre: One person was killed and six injured in a shooting at the Eaton Centre food court on June 2.
Little Italy: One person was killed and others were injured in a shooting at a café on College St. on June 18.
Canada Day: A man was shot in the Beach steps from Canada Day fireworks on July 1.
Top Stories on the Web:
The new head of Toronto community housing called the Danzig St. shooting his sad introduction to Toronto this morning, and promised to work with the neighbourhood to restore calm.
“Kids have guns and shouldn’t have guns,” said Gene Jones at the scene of Monday night’s gunfire at a public housing block that left two dead and 19 injured.
“You guys have stringent gun laws and kids are still getting the opportunity to have guns,” said Jones, who took over TCHC on June 18 after running the public housing corporation in Detroit.
“The sad thing about this is that is my introduction to Toronto.”
Jones said he understood witnesses’ reluctance to come forward after a block party turned deadly.
“They’re just scared. So many people are watching people in developments. They are scared.”
He promised grievance counsellors for the neighbourhood and promised to return Tuesday night to help restore calm.
“It’s just so senseless, these guns. Crime does not happen on my social housing sites – crime comes from outside these neighbourhoods,” said Jones, a 30-year veteran of social housing administration.
“Toronto is no different from Detroit and is no different from any other city. Kids have guns because it makes them powerful to have a gun. We just have to get those guns off of the streets.”
Ron Moeser, the city councillor for the Danzig St. area, said the scale of the shooting horrified him.
Moeser said he was notified of the shooting by a call from Mayor Rob Ford’s office around 11:30 p.m. Monday.
“The community is outraged, I’m outraged,” Moeser said in an interview Tuesday morning. “I can’t believe that, given the makeup of this community, something would happen on this scale where somebody would walk into a crowd and just start shooting. This could happen anywhere but it's a terrible blow to the community.”
Moeser (Ward 44 Scarborough East) said crime has generally been down in the area since the early 2000s when the “Galloway Boys” and other gangs terrorized parts of Scarborough with deadly gunfire.
Moeser, a fiscal conservative on council, credits some of the crime reduction to financial resources poured into the area, including the rebuilding of Heron Park recreation centre, construction of a standalone public library branch instead of one in a plaza and new Coronation Dr. basketball facilities.
“We had a task force to engage the community and fight this back then and it looks like we’re going to have to establish something again given the scale of this shooting,” Moeser said.
The police responded with a massive investigation, dubbed Project Pathfinder, aimed at dismantling the Galloway Boys and rival gangs.
Michael Thompson, another Scarborough Councillor and vice-chair of the police services board, said, “We’re all shaken and we all want to express condolences to the families involved.
“This shooting is shocking, very disturbing and unprecedented. I’ve never heard of such a thing, with so many victims, in this city,” said Thompson (Ward 37 Scarborough Centre).
Thompson, who was invited to the Danzig St. block party but could not go, called this gunplay particularly disturbing on the heels of several other public shootings this year.
As economic development chair, Thompson is part of the Ford administration that has taken aim at parts of the so-called “priority centres” program established by Ford's predecessor, David Miller, that puts extra money into troubled communities in hopes of turning young people away from crime.
But Thompson said Tuesday he personally supports targeted investment, while knowing that some youths will simply not avail themselves of the opportunities.
“Kids have guns and shouldn’t have guns,” said Gene Jones at the scene of Monday night’s gunfire at a public housing block that left two dead and 19 injured.
“You guys have stringent gun laws and kids are still getting the opportunity to have guns,” said Jones, who took over TCHC on June 18 after running the public housing corporation in Detroit.
“The sad thing about this is that is my introduction to Toronto.”
Jones said he understood witnesses’ reluctance to come forward after a block party turned deadly.
“They’re just scared. So many people are watching people in developments. They are scared.”
He promised grievance counsellors for the neighbourhood and promised to return Tuesday night to help restore calm.
“It’s just so senseless, these guns. Crime does not happen on my social housing sites – crime comes from outside these neighbourhoods,” said Jones, a 30-year veteran of social housing administration.
“Toronto is no different from Detroit and is no different from any other city. Kids have guns because it makes them powerful to have a gun. We just have to get those guns off of the streets.”
Ron Moeser, the city councillor for the Danzig St. area, said the scale of the shooting horrified him.
Moeser said he was notified of the shooting by a call from Mayor Rob Ford’s office around 11:30 p.m. Monday.
“The community is outraged, I’m outraged,” Moeser said in an interview Tuesday morning. “I can’t believe that, given the makeup of this community, something would happen on this scale where somebody would walk into a crowd and just start shooting. This could happen anywhere but it's a terrible blow to the community.”
Moeser (Ward 44 Scarborough East) said crime has generally been down in the area since the early 2000s when the “Galloway Boys” and other gangs terrorized parts of Scarborough with deadly gunfire.
Moeser, a fiscal conservative on council, credits some of the crime reduction to financial resources poured into the area, including the rebuilding of Heron Park recreation centre, construction of a standalone public library branch instead of one in a plaza and new Coronation Dr. basketball facilities.
“We had a task force to engage the community and fight this back then and it looks like we’re going to have to establish something again given the scale of this shooting,” Moeser said.
The police responded with a massive investigation, dubbed Project Pathfinder, aimed at dismantling the Galloway Boys and rival gangs.
Michael Thompson, another Scarborough Councillor and vice-chair of the police services board, said, “We’re all shaken and we all want to express condolences to the families involved.
“This shooting is shocking, very disturbing and unprecedented. I’ve never heard of such a thing, with so many victims, in this city,” said Thompson (Ward 37 Scarborough Centre).
Thompson, who was invited to the Danzig St. block party but could not go, called this gunplay particularly disturbing on the heels of several other public shootings this year.
As economic development chair, Thompson is part of the Ford administration that has taken aim at parts of the so-called “priority centres” program established by Ford's predecessor, David Miller, that puts extra money into troubled communities in hopes of turning young people away from crime.
But Thompson said Tuesday he personally supports targeted investment, while knowing that some youths will simply not avail themselves of the opportunities.
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