Fatal shooting of 14-year-old girl in Etobicoke ‘suspicious’: police

WATCH ABOVE: Toronto police say a 14-year-old girl has been killed after a “suspicious” shooting at a residence in Etobicoke. Police say she died of a single gunshot wound fired by an illegal semi-automatic handgun, which has since been seized. Yet questions remain as to how she was killed and where the gun came from. Mark McAllister has the story.

TORONTO — Toronto police say a 14-year-old girl has died after suffering a gunshot wound to her upper body at a residence in Etobicoke.

Her mother was expected to hold a press conference on Friday but a community pastor representing the family said she was too distraught to do so.

“The mother is crying right now. She’s really sad. She’s weeping,” said pastor Keaton Austin. “We as a community have to come together more.”

Austin said 14-year-old Lecent Ross’ mother might still address the public on Saturday.

Police responded to a call of a shooting at Jamestown Crescent, in the Kipling Avenue and Albion Road area, at about 10:40 a.m. on Thursday.

Toronto Police Det. Richard Petrie said the girl was pronounced dead at 11:30 a.m. and died of a single gunshot wound fired by an illegal semi-automatic handgun, which has since been seized by police.

Petrie said there are no outstanding people related to the shooting and police are interviewing everyone present at the scene of the shooting. He added that there was a parent present, as well as other young people, but said the girl did not reside at the residence where the shooting took place and was visiting.

Petrie could not confirm reports that the girl had been shot while handling a handgun.

“It’s still an active investigation, that’s certainly something that I’m looking into but I am not considering it an accident at this time,” he said.

“I’m considering it a suspicious death and we’re still looking into all avenues.”

WATCH: Toronto Police say shooting death of 14-year-old girl not an accident. 

Petrie said the gun recovered was a 40-calibre Smith and Wesson handgun with a “very short barrel” and that it is considered a “prohibited weapon.”

“I’m certainly not ready to say that this was done intentionally by her or even an accident by her,” he said, adding that he’s not ruling out the possibility that someone else at the residence fired the weapon.

“Somebody knew about it, somebody could have called Crime Stoppers … the public knew about this gun it didn’t just show up.”

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Petrie said investigators don’t believe the girl brought the gun to the residence and that there is the potential that an arrest could be made in connection with the shooting.

“It’s a scary situation,” said neighbour Rhonda Telesford.

“Every time you think it’s getting a little better, especially in the neighbourhood, and you hope that, ‘Ok this year it’s going to be ok,’ and it comes up again … It’s so often.”

Another neighbour, Neisha Tyme, said it was hard for her to put a reaction to the shooting into words.

“There has to be a preventative measure to things like this. We have to try to figure out how to prevent incidents like this from occurring,” she said, adding that her husband was fatally shot in May of this year on Campbell Avenue.

“So in order to avoid all of this, this, all of this, something needs to be in place to prevent it and I don’t know. What do we do? Who do we call? How do the guns get here?”

WATCH: Toronto Police say all found at crime scene of 14-year-old’s shooting are cooperating.

Toronto Police Const. Victor Kwong said police were planning an emergency run to assist paramedics in getting the girl to hospital, but that was later cancelled.

Paramedics said they had initially transported the girl to hospital in life-threatening condition, but police later confirmed Thursday afternoon she had died from her injuries.

With files from Mark McAllister