Four young teens gathered around a makeshift memorial outside of a condo building in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood on late Wednesday morning.
Dressed mostly in black, the teens brought flowers to lay in front of photos of Mackai Bishop Jackson, a 15-year-old who was shot and killed inside the building less than 24 hours earlier.
As tears filled their eyes, they looked at photos of the teen posted on the building’s exterior: pictures of Jackson posing in front of a car, next to a friend, standing by himself. Unlit candles lined the concrete wall. A blue stuffed bunny was slouched over on the ground.
Toronto police responded to a shooting call in the area of Sackville and Bartholomew streets around 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday, and pronounced Jackson dead on the scene. Authorities have not revealed who killed the teen or any motive behind the shooting. His family and friends are in mourning.
Jackson was shot in the home of Sabila Mohamed. Her son was friends with Jackson, and the one who called 911 when he was shot.
In a press conference outside Regent Park’s Community Centre on Wednesday, Mohamed told a group of reporters she was worried about her community, its children and her son. Would he get the resources and counselling services he needs? Seeing your friend die isn’t something you forget.
“A boy died here, our kids are dying every single day… what is the city doing about it?” she said.
“We need the city to recognize we need help… our kids need counselling.”
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The location of the press conference was intentional. The community centre is where local residents often meet, and also, until recently, the place where many youth like Jackson came after school. It offered programs and activities, and kept kids busy. It gave them a place to be.
That community centre at 402 Shuter St. has been used as an emergency reception centre since Aug. 31, offering shelter to those in need and other services. This means kids haven’t been able to use the space the way they used to.
“If the kids had a place to go, they wouldn’t be going home, they’d be doing to a community centre after school to do their work, to play… but right now, kids go straight home. They have nowhere to go.”
Selwyn Pieters, a lawyer and member of the Regent Park neighbourhood, said that community programs are vital to reducing violence. When kids have education resources and support systems in place, they are more likely to succeed in life.
“The mayor seems to be fixated on banning handguns, and now that there’s been a shooting in Regent Park, you’ll hear the calls for more debate about policing and how to deal with violence,” he said.
In an update released Wednesday evening, the City of Toronto said regularly scheduled recreation after-school care programs would resume on Monday. Officials said the emergency reception centre at the Regent Park Community Centre will be closed on Friday. Those displaced from 650 Parliament St. after the fire in August and staying at the facility are being moved to alternate accommodations arranged for by apartment property owner.
Megann Willson, a member of the community who is running for city council, said this isn’t the first time the city temporarily transformed the community centre into an emergency shelter. She said Regent Park is often one of the places where the city puts people that are in need.
“Whenever we have a shelter crisis — which we seem to repeatedly keep having in the city — Regent Park Community Centre becomes one of the places, the epicenter, of where we locate people that we have no place to put them,” she said.
“Then there is no provision made for where the youth go, who are finally having a place to call their own.”