Police are investigating the murder of a 25-year-old Toronto man after shots rang outside of a community centre in north Etobicoke Sunday night.
Just after 8 p.m., police responded to a call outside of North Kipling Community Centre at Kipling Avenue and Finch Avenue West where they say they found a severely injured man.
The victim, Neeko Mitchell, was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving.
According to witnesses, a basketball league was running at the community centre on Sunday evening and as many as 80 people were inside and outside of the building when Mitchell was shot.
Dane Anthony Shaw, a community outreach worker, was just starting the second half of his basketball game when the shooting took place.
“I heard at least six rounds from the gym, and it happened outside, and when I came out the guy was there laying on the ground and everybody had left, his friends and everybody,” Shaw told CTV’s Austin Delaney on Monday.
Shaw says he believes the shooting is gang-related, potentially a turf war over who got to play on the basketball court.
“This is a current problem… Basketball and gun violence. They say they own the gym, and it belongs to the city. So when (people) from a different community come here, they want to fight,” he said.
Police have obtained video footage from surveillance cameras pointed near the spot where Mitchell was shot.
Police said that many people who were at the community centre Sunday night left directly after the shooting. (1-800-222-TIPS or www.222tips.com). They’re asking that anyone who at the scene or had seen Mitchell before the shooting to contact police immediately. This is Toronto’s 53rd homicide of 2013.
