An innocent teen who was caught up in gunfire while running back inside to get his shoes died in his mother’s arms while she applied pressure to a bullet hole in his head, a family friend said.
Jonathan Davis, 17, died in a parkette behind an apartment complex, near Morning Star and Goreway drives in Mississauga, around 6.30 p.m. on Saturday.
Five other people were also wounded in the attack, including a 13-year-old girl, a 16-year-old boy and two other 17-year-old boys. Four of the five victims remain in hospital as of Monday afternoon.
Video that emerged after the shooting, taken from a nearby balcony, showed people running for cover as the sound of gunfire rang out. Police believe the suspects were targeting a group of teens who were filming a rap video at the complex.
Jonathan Davis, 17, was killed in a shooting on Saturday. (Supplied)
“She called me, she just screamed and said ‘Jonathan,’” family friend Selma Alincy told CTV News Toronto on Monday.
“It just happened so fast, she saw the shot to his head and tried to apply pressure.”
“She was just beside herself. No parent should ever go through that, it’s a day that I will never forget.”
“She was trying to help her son and she couldn’t.”
Alincy said she rushed to the apartment complex but by the time she arrived, Davis was dead and his body was covered with a sheet by police. She said Davis was not involved with the group recording the rap video.
The Grade 12 student died in his mother's arms. (Supplied)
“His father was here, he was going to his fathers’ house for the weekend,” Alincy said.
“He had his slippers on and noticed, so went back to change his shoes and he did not make it back.”
Alincy described Davis as a quiet boy who loved video games. She said he was never involved in any gang activity.
“He was smart young man. He helped his mom, he helps his dad who is going blind.”
Selma Alincy rushed to the scene after learning about the shooting. (CTV News Toronto / Tracy Tong)
Meanwhile, Alincy has organized a GoFundMe to help Davis’ parents pay for the funeral arrangements.
“No parent ever thinks that they would have to bury their child, and this is something my friend will have to do,” Alincy wrote.
“At this time a financial contribution would be accepted and appreciated by the family, should you choose to do to assist.”
Additional support has been put in place at Davis’ high school for students and staff following his death.
A spokeswoman for the Peel District School Board said members of the board's Critical Incident Response Team will be at Lincoln M. Alexander Secondary School as long as they’re needed.
At a news conference on Sunday afternoon, Peel Police Chief Chris McCord said that investigators believe the suspects were motivated, at least in part, by a rap video that had been shot in the same parkette released earlier this week.
That video, he said, contained information “challenging other people within the community.”
Police investigate after the fatal shooing. (CTV News Toronto)
“We believe their (the suspects’) motive for coming here was to target those individuals shooting the rap video. There just happened to be a lot of people outside – it was a nice night last night – and they became victims caught up in this attack,” he said.
Peel Regional Police are still looking for at least seven suspects in the case.
Investigators said the suspects descended on the area surrounding an apartment complex, firing semi-automatic handguns indiscriminately.
Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie has described the shooting as a “senseless, tragic” act of violence.
“I am a mother and I was just crushed to hear that there are individuals marring a beautiful evening by executing senseless violent crimes with semi-automatic weapons,” she said. “My heart goes out to the family of this innocent victim, now deceased, who by all accounts was an outstanding young man who lived here in the complex. It is just a senseless event.”
Crombie said that residents of the complex are understandably shaken in the wake of the shooting but she said that it is a “targeted and isolated incident.”
She said that there will be an increased police presence in the area for an extended time period.
“The community should feel safe,” she said.
With files from CTV News Toronto's Tracy Tong
