Police identify Toronto shooting victim as 24-year-old Javonte Daley

Police have identified a 24-year-old man killed in a shooting in Scarborough on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Toronto police said “several” callers reported the sound of multiple gunshots in the area of Lawrence Avenue East and Mossbank Drive. Callers also reported “someone laying on the ground.”

In an update, police confirmed the man had succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead.

In an update on Thursday, police identified the victim as 24-year-old Javonte Daley.

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In an interview with Global News on Thursday Daley’s mother, Anita Burton, told Global News her son was a “lovely kid.”

“He smiles a lot and he’s very friendly,” she said. “So I’m just lost for words to say why this happened to him that way. It was never meant to happen that way.”

She said he was at her apartment to get some food just before the incident happened.

Burton said while Daley lived elsewhere, he was at her apartment often.

Burton said she had been preparing to celebrate Daley’s 25^th birthday on Saturday.

Daley is the eldest of her four children, Burton said. She said she is going to miss Daley.

Witnesses told Global News they heard multiple shots outside of the apartment building, and saw Daley laying on the ground.

Police are now looking at surveillance footage in an effort to identify the suspects.

Officers will also be looking into Daley’s past.

Court records obtained by Global News show that in 2018, Daley was convicted of robbery in relation to a number of bank robberies in 2016 in which he passed a note to a teller and indicated that he was armed. He was sentenced to nine months of pretrial custody, three months in jail and a 10-year weapons ban.

Burton said Daley had been staying out of trouble, and that she is desperate to find out who killed her son, and why.

“Please whoever did this, turn yourself in,” she said.

-with files from Global News’ and Hannah Jackson