Several people surrounded Nerio Valdez, a 17-year-old high school student and avid soccer player, shot him and left him to die in a hydro field, police say.
A 15-year-old passerby found his body Sunday afternoon among some bushes in a Hydro right-of-way in the suburb of north Etobicoke.
Investigators say that surveillance footage shows Mr. Valdez in a verbal argument with two to four suspects in a dead end street shortly before he was shot at around 11 p.m. Thursday night. Police do not know why he was killed.
“He wasn’t a trouble maker,” Deanna Macintyre, a family friend, said. “He’s very well liked by everybody. We don’t know why someone would want to do this to him.
His parents last spoke to him on Thursday when he told them that he would be home for dinner after playing basketball at Amesbury Park and after visiting a friend.
His friends called him “Pelé,” after the Brazilian soccer great, his father said. The home where the Don Bosco Catholic School student lived, is decorated with medals and trophies. “He was number one in every sport, his dream was to become a soccer player,” Ms. Macintyre said.
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