TORONTO -- A family is searching for answers after a 22-year-old student was fatally shot in North York Wednesday night, just steps outside his home.
Emergency crews were called to an address on Field Sparroway, located in the area of Leslie Street and Finch Avenue East, for reports of shots fired shortly after 8 p.m.
After arriving at the scene, officers said they located a man on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead shortly after.
The victim has been identified as Jeremy Vincent Urbina, a student at the Ontario College of Art and Design University.
His family told CTV News Toronto he had been studying for a school exam earlier in the evening, and decided to go to the supermarket across the street to get some food for himself and his mother.
When Urbina didn't return home after more than 45 minutes, his mother, who did not want to be identified, said she started to feel worried and started calling and texting him.
A little while later, a police officer showed up at her door.
"[He] told me my son is dead, just like that," Urbina's mother told CTV News Toronto. "I can't believe it. I'm still in denial. I'm numb."
Urbina, the youngest of three brothers, was a second-year integrated media student at the university. His family said he loved the arts and theatre.
"He had this very vibrant energy," Urbina's sister-in-law, Tarah Hamilton, said. "He was always very relaxed, didn't take himself too seriously and just wanted people to be happy and be okay."
The family said they believe he was an innocent victim and that they are struggling to understand why anyone would want to harm him.
"I'm trying to grasp on something and make sense of anything," Urbina's mother said. "He's such a good kid. Why would this happen to us, to him?
Police are looking for two suspects who had their faces concealed, and were last seen running westbound from the scene near Finch Avenue, west of Leslie Street.
The first suspect was wearing a dark-coloured hooded sweatshirt and dark-coloured pants, investigators said, and the second suspect was wearing all dark clothing.
While his family said nothing can bring Urbina back, they are pleading for help in identifying the suspects.
"We just want to feel like we can exist in this community, and in this space, without being paranoid that at the wrong moment someone can just come up to you and take your life," Hamilton said.
"It's just not fair."
Anyone with further information is asked to contact officers at 416-808-7400 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).
