Mourners packed a Scarborough funeral home on Friday to say goodbye to John O'Keefe, an innocent bystander gunned down in downtown Toronto last weekend.
The 42-year-old was described as a caring friend and a loving father to his nine-year-old son Iain.
O'Keefe died after being shot in the head while walking along Yonge Street early Saturday morning. He had been out with friends.
Police say O'Keefe was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the shooter was allegedly trying to hit a bouncer at the Brass Rail strip club, who had ejected two men a short time earlier.
O'Keefe grew up in Scarborough and worked at a downtown vitamin store.
Friday's service was particularly painful for relatives as another innocent bystander and father, Hou Chang Mao, was killed in a gun battle in the city's east end on Thursday night.
Mourners said the two incidents are tragic.
"It's so sad," friend Annette Hanson told CTV Toronto. "It doesn't make any sense. People don't have any sensitivity towards other people's lives. It's all very tragic, for everybody, and I wish they could do something because guns kill people -- that's what they're meant for."
"It's terrible," said another mourner. "I don't know when it's going to end .... I think there have got to be some serious gun laws put into effect."
A friend of O'Keefe said the government should impose minimum sentences for criminals caught with guns.
"I don't understand why, if you're caught with a gun, you just don't go to jail," the man said.
"That should be the first thing. If you have a gun in the course of (committing) a crime, I think you should be sent away right away just for having the gun."
Police have charged two Toronto men, 22-year-old Edward Paredes and 23-year-old Awet Zekarias, with first-degree murder and attempted murder in the slaying.
A handgun allegedly connected to the shooting was registered to one of the accused, who is reportedly a member of a gun club.
With a report from CTV Toronto's Austin Delaney
