Plaza shooting claims life of 15-year-old boy
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The victim of Toronto’s latest murder was a 15-year-old boy gunned down at a North York plaza on Labour Day.
Toronto Police said Mario Giddings, of Toronto, was shot and killed around 7:45 p.m. on Monday outside Tudo’s Pizza House, located in a plaza in the Trethewey-Black Creek Drs. area.
“Everybody was calling me and saying, ‘Aren’t you going downstairs. They shot Mario,’” said the teen’s aunt and guardian, Fortunata Giddings. “And I was like, ‘What?’ And I ran downstairs.”
Giddings told The Toronto Sun that initially she could see someone performing CPR on a person from her penthouse apartment overlooking the plaza, but had no idea her nephew was involved.
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Homicide Insp. Ted Lioumanis said the teen was “targeted” and that multiple rounds were fired at the teen.
Mario, who was set to start Grade 11 at Weston Collegiate on Tuesday, had lived with his aunt after for several years after his parents returned to St. Lucia.
Fortuna Giddings said her nephew wanted to go to a new school because he was involved in a fight with students from a rival school at the end of last year before summer break.
“He feared for his life,” she added.
She explained while Mario was “a very quiet child,” he could be “hard-headed.”
Giddings said she had reached out to the vice-principal of Weston Collegiate last week in an effort to get Mario into another school.
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Giddings added she was told that the killer “was well masked up” and wore gloves.
A killer opened fire from a dark-coloured vehicle that entered the plaza, said police. The vehicle drove away after the violence.
Mourners put flowers and candles outside the pizza shop, which had a bullet hole in the front window.
Tom Do, the owner of the shop, explained a bullet hit the front counter and made a hole in his drink cooler. Another stray bullet went through the side window of a nearby Tim Hortons. No one was injured at either location.
Meanwhile, Insp. Paul Krawczyk, of the Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force, said there were 11 shootings across the city over the long weekend.
Speaking at police headquarters, Krawczyk stood before a large TV screen displaying images of weapons that officers seized — six hand guns, as well as ammo and cash — and noted six people were arrested in connection to those firearms.
None of the guns seized had been used in fatal shootings, which claimed the lives of two other victims in addition to Giddings over the weekend.
One of them, Triston McNally, 37, of Brampton, was killed Sunday morning in an alley, near Times Rd. and Eglinton Ave. West.
And on Friday evening, Ioannis Kyriakopoulos, 64, was gunned down at his home in the Danforth Ave.- Danforth Rd. area.
The Sun reported Kyriakopoulos had been targeted by authorities in a large organized crime sting related to gambling.
A source confirmed to the Sun that Kyriakopoulos owned the house where he was shot and that the dwelling was among a number of locations raided five months ago by RCMP officers attempting to dismantle an alleged illegal gaming and book-making network.
“The raids were carried out by the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU) from March 28 to March 30,” the RCMP said in a statement released April 5. “The results of the coordinated enforcement effort have led to charges against persons linked to an alleged criminal organization, including former Hells Angels member Paris Christoforou.”
Christoforou, a former full-patch member of the Hells Angels, was among four men convicted for a high-profile 2004 botched mob hit — at a California Sandwiches shop in Downsview — that left innocent victim Louise Russo paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.
— With files from Chris Doucette
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