Hamilton DJ identified as Toronto shooting victim
A Hamilton father and DJ has been identified as the victim of a shooting in Toronto.
Police say Leonard Pinnock, 33, had been waiting for a friend in his car in a parking lot at Dufferin Street and Bowie Avenue, near Eglinton Avenue West, when he was shot around 9:30 p.m. Friday.
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
As news spread over the weekend about Pinnock’s death, friends expressed shock and grief on social media.
“He was a special person in everyone’s lives and his family was in his (heart),” one friend, Roxy, wrote in one tribute posted to Pinnock’s Instagram account Sunday.
The account, which is under his DJ name “Champ Juve,” includes promotional posters for his gigs — including weekly Thursday night Ladies’ Night events at Sam’s Old Tyme Tavern on Parkdale Avenue North.
The account also includes motivational quotes about hard work and following passions.
“Supporting another’s success won’t ever dampen yours,” one reads.
Andrel Jack, a fellow DJ who said he was a mentor of Pinnock’s, said he was a hard worker with a good attitude.
“I could tell he was someone who really loved what he was doing,” Jack said Sunday. “He had just started buying new equipment to really get his thing going.”
Jack said he couldn’t think of any reason that Pinnock would be targeted — he was so focused on his music and his family.
He says he suspects it was a case of “a guy who was in the wrong place at a wrong time.”
“He was always busy with DJing or working or cutting hair,” Jack said, noting that Pinnock had worked as a courier and was also a barber on the side.
Whenever they got together, which was typically weekly, he says Pinnock would be picking his brain about his music.
But he always mentioned his young daughter.
“He loved her. He was always talking about her,” Jack said.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise money for his young daughter.
Speaking at the crime scene on Saturday morning, Toronto Police Det.-Sgt. Joyce Schertzer said Pinnock was killed by “more than one, but less than 10” shots.
An autopsy was scheduled to take place over the weekend.
Schertzer said police are seeking multiple suspects in the shooting,
The homicide is Toronto’s 17th of 2017. At the same time in 2016, there had been 26 homicides. Hamilton has seen one homicide so far this year.
Jack said that friends are organizing a tribute event for Pinnock at the EndZone Bar and Grill at 1305 Main St. E., across from Delta high school, on May 5.
“It’s really hard for me to come to grips with,” Jack said.
“He was just budding into being the DJ he wanted to be.”