Grieving mother of past shooting victim feels ‘triggered’ by spate of Toronto gun violence

The impact of Toronto’s long weekend of gun violence is being felt by the grieving mother of a past shooting victim.

Kiesingar Gunn, 26, was shot outside Forty2 Supperclub in Liberty Village on Sept. 11, 2016. There were shots fired outside the same nightclub early Sunday morning.

“All it does it trigger, non-stop triggers, and it gets me absolutely infuriated that this is continuing to happen with no real solutions,” said Evelyn Fox, Gunn’s mother.

Fox said she was outraged to hear about another shooting at the club where her son was struck in the head by a stray bullet nearly three years ago. Gunn, a father of four, was out celebrating a friend’s birthday. He left when the party finished and was about to drive away, but returned when he noticed someone he knew was involved in an altercation. And that was when he was shot.

“He loved the kids, he really did, he was an amazing dad,” recalled his mother.

It’s believed Gunn was not the intended target.

Despite dozens of witnesses and surveillance video of a suspect, no arrests have been made.

“This is what I live. This is me every single solitary day,” said Fox.

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Now part of a group no parent wants to join, she is speaking out on behalf of so many others.

“In the name of all the grieving mothers in the city do what is right by all of us, we still have other children … that still have to grow up in this city and we are terrified to let our children out of the house,” she said.

“Just the thought of them leaving the house and something happening to them.”

Kiesingar was Fox’s first born child. She has other children and is an active grandparent to his young children, but the pain of losing her son remains. Fox said every time she hears of shots fired, she relives the trauma.

“It honestly makes my heart hurt, like it feels like someone is literally reaching in my chest and squeezing my heart out … I constantly am being triggered by somebody else’s murder,” she said.

Fox now fights gun violence in her son’s honour. She has called for a comprehensive anti-gun violence action plan with efforts beginning with at-risk youth, and not the gun ban Toronto Mayor John Tory has called for.

“Ask these guys on the street if a gun ban will affect them — they’ll laugh because it will not,” she said.

Fox said she continues to feel dismay and disappointment that her son’s murder remains unsolved.

“The person who killed him is still walking the street … and nobody wants to come forward … it makes me realize people don’t care about the lives being taken,” she said.

Last year, Toronto police announced a $50,000 reward for information that will help convict the gunman who killed him.

The male suspect was described as being approximately 18 to 22 years old, five feet 11 inches to six feet tall, with a dark complexion, slim build, and hair braided in corn rows. He was wearing a white hooded sweatshirt with a black print. Anyone with information is asked to contact police.

“I am literally dying slowly inside — every single solitary day I am dying slowly inside. My heart can never mend,” said Fox.