An eight-year-old boy who narrowly escaped a hail of gunfire while crossing the street to buy a popsicle in Rexdale over the weekend said he heard loud bangs and thought they were firecrackers.

The boy told CTV News Toronto that he hid behind a neighbour’s porch until the shooting stopped. He said he was “not that scared.”

“Only a little, when they were a little bit close to me. That’s when I got scared,” he said. “I ran. I was just breathing in and then out, and then they left.”

According to the boy, who is not being identified, kids in the neighbourhood play a game where they hide from certain vehicles when they drive down the street. The game started, he said, after a previous drive-by shooting in the area.

The boy’s mother, who did not want to be identified, said that she was not aware of the game until after the shooting on Saturday.

“When they’re on this side of the street and they see a black car coming they all dodge, either between the other cars or behind the trees or stuff like that, because most of the shootings before have been out of dark coloured cars,” the mother said.

“They have to. It’s survival. But that’s not a game to be playing either,” she said. “What else can you do when you live here?”

The shooting took place at around 9:30 p.m. on Jamestown Crescent, which is near Martin Grove Road and Finch Avenue.

Supt. Ron Taverner told CP24 that the boy was crossing the road to buy a popsicle at a Toronto Community Housing building on Jamestown Crescent when an SUV pulled up.

Police released security camera footage of the shooting on Wednesday, describing the incident as “callous” and “disgusting.”

“It’s very disturbing – to us, to the community, to the family of an eight year old boy that was walking across the street – that bullets were whizzing by him,” said Wednesday.

In the video, one young man crosses the street just before the SUV pulls up.

The eight-year-old boy then dashes across the street just as two individuals get out of the vehicle and open fire on the unidentified man who crossed the street earlier.

Surveillance images released by police show one of the gunman standing in the middle of the street and appearing to fire directly at the boy, who ran and hid in the alcove of a home.

“The boy luckily ran and ducked into an alcove or this could have been a homicide fairly easily,” Taverner told CP24. “It is very outrageous. When you see the (surveillance) video it is absolutely disgusting, this callous disregard for life.”

Taverner said that 15 shell casings were recovered at the scene from two different caliber handguns.

He said that the bullets were flying “right over” the child’s head at one point.

The boy’s mother said that her daughter heard other kids calling out her brother’s name, telling him to get to safety.

“He came home he was crying. His sister was crying. His other sister was crying. Everyone was just really shook up,” the mother said. “Nobody should go through this, regardless of the age, but an eight-year-old having a traumatic experience like this? It shouldn’t be happening.”

“Every year it’s the same thing. They don’t really care who they’re shooting at or whose gonna get hit in the crossfire. It’s another stripe for them, for the gangs anyway,” she said.

While two different guns were used in the shooting, police said there may have been as many as three people inside the vehicle, described as a 2010 or 2011 model Toyota Rav4.

Taverner said that police are interested in speaking with the man who was shot at, but have not been able to identify him so far. Taverner said he may or may not have been the intended target of the shooting.

“People know who these individuals are and we need people to come forward. These are the types of crimes that we need to solve because these people won’t stop at just doing what they have done here,” he said. “They are a danger to the community and we need to deal with these people.”

The boy’s mother told CTV News Toronto that there was no point in making an appeal for the intended target or the suspect to turn themselves in.

“You can appeal all you want. They’re not going to go and turn themselves in. Look at what they’ve done,” she said. “They knew what they were doing and they still do it. So appealing for them to turn themselves in… they’re not going to do that.”

“I just want to let them know that if you live by the gun, you die by the gun. Your time will come. That’s all I’m saying.”

Police said one of the suspects is described as a black male with a medium build who was wearing a dark coloured jacket, dark pants and had a hoodie on.

Anyone with information is being urged to contact police.

-With files from CTV News Toronto's Tracy Tong