Girls friend 12 caught in crossfire of North York highrise complex shootout

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It's just the latest shooting at a highrise complex that has seen more than its fair share of gun violence

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Jack Boland Cheyene Kelly, age 12, and her mom Jacqueline McKnight stand at the area where they saw from their balcony that a 12-year-old boy was shot twice in the leg on Friday night around 11 p.m. near a children's playground located on Falstaff Ave. Cheyenne said the boy is a friend and she used to go to school with him.   on Saturday July 31, 2021. Jack Boland/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network Cheyene Kelly, age 12, and her mom Jacqueline McKnight stand at the area where they saw from their balcony that a 12-year-old boy was shot twice in the leg on Friday night around 11 p.m. near a children's playground located on Falstaff Ave. Cheyenne said the boy is a friend and she used to go to school with him. on Saturday July 31, 2021. Jack Boland/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network Article content

Cheyenne Kelly heard upwards of 19 to 20 shots fired in a North York parkette Friday night â€" but the 12-year-old never imagined the bullets would have struck somebody she knows.

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“I looked off the balcony, and then was looking at my phone, and then somebody said it was my friend,” Kelly said Saturday . “I started crying and getting upset.”

Her friend, an unidentified 12-year-old boy, was caught in the crossfire of a shootout near a playground that separates two building on Falstaff Ave. near Jane St. just before 11 p.m.

“Its scary because it could have been me or one of my other friends. Because I just came home a little before that,” said Kelly.

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Her mother, Jacqueline McKnight, is angered by the latest shooting in her neighbourhood.

“The police need to go around and go in the neighbourhood and dig out these guys,” she said.

“We are losing too many of our young, black men in general. It is too much,” added McKnight, who raced down to the parkette to help out after the gunshots rang out.

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She had stern words for those responsible for the shooting that clipped the young boy twice in the leg.

“It is not where you live, it is how you live. Don’t put Falstaff as a bad area to live,” said McKnight.

  • A week after Hashim Omar Hashi, 20, was gunned down in North York, Ahmed Urur remembers his friend as he is joined community members and Toronto Police to addresses the media at 40 Falstaff Ave. on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2021. Falstaff shooting victim remembered as 'beautiful soul'
  • TCHC officers patrol a Falstaff Ave. highrise where a 12-year-old boy was shot on Friday night around 11 p.m. on Saturday, July 31, 2021. WARMINGTON: Boy, 12, injured in city's latest wild west shootout
  • Grieving woman comfort one another on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2019, at a TCHC highrise on Falstaff Ave. where a boy, 16, was gunned down. (Kevin Connor/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network) 'OUR BOYS ARE DYING EVERY DAY': Somali moms grieve as teen gunned down in North York highrise stairwell
  • A hole is seen in a door following a shooting at 20 Falstaff Ave. in Toronto, Ont. on Wednesday August 19, 2020. Man critically hurt in lobby shooting
  • Resident Marvin Chiduichon heard the gunfire and recorded video from his balcony of paramedics treating the injured boy.

    “I heard about 15 shots and I knew they weren’t fireworks,” he recalled. “And what I saw was a boy on the (ground) with his mother beside him.”

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    Toronto Police and Toronto Community Housing security officers were posted in the parking and drove by the complex throughout the day.

    The buildings and surrounding area has seen more than its fair share of gun violence.

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    The latest shooting comes almost two years to the day after Hanad Abdullahi Ali, 16, was shot to death at the complex.

    The teen was reportedly left a friend’s apartment, where he had been playing video games, and was gunned down in the stairwell around 1 a.m. on Aug. 1, 2019.

    Earlier this year, on Jan. 31, Hashim Omar Hashi, 20 â€" an accounting student who worked part-time at Pearson International part-time â€" was shot dead as he drove into a parking garage at the complex.

    jboland@postmedia.com

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