‘I will never forget that sound’: Friend of Toronto woman fatally shot in drive-by shooting speaks out

A witness who was in a vehicle with a 31-year-old Toronto woman when she was fatally shot in an apparently random drive-by shooting early Sunday is remembering her friend and is pleading with those responsible to surrender to police.

“I’m so angry right now. I cry, I cry, but I stopped crying. I just want to be strong. In my heart, I still don’t believe my friend is gone because I feel like she is still alive,” a woman, who Global News isn’t identifying due to safety concerns, said in an interview Monday afternoon.

“People, please stop the violence in the city. You need to stop because you’re hurting people … If you’re going around shooting random people, that is a problem — that is a big problem.”

Emergency crews were called to Old Meadow Lane, near Allen and Flemington roads, at 2 a.m. on Sunday after reports a person was shot. Paramedics rushed the victim, who was later identified as Jenas Nyarko, to a Toronto trauma centre with a police escort in life-threatening condition. She later died in hospital.

The woman said she, Nyarko, who is also known as Maame Jane, along with two others, were dropping Nyarko off at her apartment building after a late-evening funeral. Instead of just stopping, the friends continued to talk for about 10 minutes before Nyarko was shot.

“We were just talking about life itself and you know, how people treat people. Life is so short because we were coming from the funeral,” she said.

“I take her there all the time. I didn’t know that was going to happen. If I knew, I would have just let her go home. Usually, we don’t stay there that long. For some strange reason, we sat there and we talked.”

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The woman, who was in the front passenger’s seat, said Nyarko was sitting in the rear, passenger-side seat.

“Everything happened so fast like we didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do,” she said.

“All I remember was a big bang and I looked around. ‘What is going on? Like what the hell? What was that?’ I thought it was a firecracker. I never thought it was a gun until she said, ‘I’m hurt.’

“I will never forget that sound. I pray to God I will never have to hear that again in my life.”

Toronto police homicide squad Det. David Dickinson said on Sunday that someone, who can be seen in surveillance video in a silver Cadillac SUV, fired a gunshot that hit Nyarko.

“The suspect vehicle then fled the area but not before discharging the firearm several more times,” he said.

Dickinson said there’s nothing to suggest Nyarko, or the three other occupants in the vehicle, were targeted.

“At this early stage in the investigation, it would appear that this is the case of individuals coming from one neighbourhood in the city to another neighbourhood and shooting the first residents that they see,” he said.

Nyarko most recently worked for the Salvation Army at a facility in Leslieville. She previously worked at a Holt Renfrew in Vaughan for several years.

Meanwhile, the woman who was in the car said there should have been no mistaking who was inside the vehicle at the time.

“We don’t have any business with anybody, so why would we think somebody would harm us? Nobody cares. We’re just friends talking,” she said.

“Our car was not dark for you to say that you couldn’t see. The door was already open … There were lights in the car so you knew there were girls in the car. We didn’t do nothing.”

She said Nyarko had so much to live for and had a list of things she wanted to accomplish — something she said she wants the suspects to know.

READ MORE: Fatal shooting in Yorkville was ‘unprovoked attack on defenseless man,’ police say

“You stole that moment away from her … You guys should not just be going around shooting at random people. That is so wrong, that is so wrong… so wrong. She didn’t do anything to anyone. She worked so hard,” the woman said.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help with Nyarko’s funeral expenses.