WATCH: Parents at a west-end Toronto Community Housing complex are scared after a man was killed just metres from where their children were playing. Lama Nicolas reports.
TORONTO – The shooting of a young man at a Toronto Community Housing complex in front of almost 30 children playing near their homes Monday night has parents in the area worried for their families’ security.
Christopher Kotsopoulos, 26, was shot Swansea Mews area just west of High Park just before 5:30 p.m. at the Queensway Windermere housing complex, a low-rise comoplex of 154 units.
First responders found Kotsopoulos in the residential neighbourhood without vital signs and suffering from a single gunshot wound. He was transferred to St. Michael’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Police are looking for at least one suspect. No weapon has been recovered.
Nasra Ahmed lives in the complex with her daughter. Dozens of kids were playing mere metres away when Kostopoulos was shot, she said in an interview.
“I should be able to leave my place knowing my kids would be safe at all times,” she said. “They took that security away from us.”
Another young girl, whose mother allowed her to speak to Global News on condition of anonymity, said she witnessed the shooting from the window of her home but thought at first it was firecrackers.
“I was inside and then I look out the window, then I heard ‘boom, boom’, then I saw someone on the floor,” she said.
Debbie Kovaci’s seven-year-old son, who Global News agreed not to identify, saw Kostopoulos moments after he was shot while he hid in nearby bushes. It makes his mom “sick.”
“He came in the house and he told me that he seen the guy shot. He heard the gunshot and he went to check it out,” Kovaci said. “He seen the other guy running, all dressed in black with a black hoodie but couldn’t see his face.”
And the shooting has Kovaci worried about the safety of her neighbourhood, scared her son can’t play outside anymore.
“This is the second shooting in less than a month in this complex,” she said. “I don’t feel safe here, I don’t feel that he’s safe to play outside.”
“They have no freedom. Not when the guns are flying around like this.”
Kotsopoulos, who residents told Global News was not from the area, has a long criminal record and was arrested in July 2009 for a July 7 robbery at a TD Canada Trust on Danforth Avenue.
Gene Jones, CEO of Toronto Community Housing, issued a statement Tuesday afternoon saying the city-owned corporation is working with Toronto police and has turned over security footage to investigators.
“Like everyone in Toronto, our residents deserve to feel safe in their communities. We take the safety of our communities very seriously,” Jones said in the written statement. “Toronto Community Housing will continue to work closely with the Toronto Police Service, the City, local agencies, community leaders and our residents to find solutions to the problem of gun violence.”
The shooting is Toronto’s 35th homicide of 2013.
-With files from Lama Nicolas
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