‘This is not the first friend that I’ve lost’
Only weeks after the neighbourhood rallied against a terrifying rise in gun violence, Lawrence Heights was left to mourn another of its victims — a beloved mentor shot dead on his way home from work
Dejazmatch James shielded his candle from the biting wind Wednesday night, watching mourners arrive at the vigil he planned in the throes of his own grief.
It had been only three weeks since the passionate 27-year-old community worker had helped organize a neighbourhood walk to decry the gun violence that’s marked his life in Lawrence Heights. After yet another summer of shootings, dozens had joined him calling for urgent changes to stop the violence.
Now, James stood alongside many of those same neighbours by a torn-up patch of lawn near Bathurst Street and Ranee Avenue, marking the spot where his childhood friend died, the community’s latest victim of gun violence.
“This is not the first friend of mine that I’ve lost,” James said.
On Oct. 7, Shane Stanford, 33, was driving back to the Lawrence Heights home he shares with his mother and younger sister. He’d just closed up the Grosvenor Street YMCA where he worked for over a decade, growing from a quiet camp counsellor to a sought-out personal trainer who stayed past his shift to help colleagues put away equipment. He hoped to one day become a YMCA general manager.
Just after 11:30 p.m., as Stanford was minutes from home, his sedan was struck by what sounded to neighbours like a stream of bullets, one resident hearing as many as five shots.
His car mounted a curb and careered onto the yard of a twostorey brick home on the corner of Regina and Khedive avenues.
Police found Stanford unconscious behind the wheel, suffering from a gunshot wound. He died at the scene.
“I can only imagine what he went through,” his older brother Ronnie Ferreira said. “What was going through his mind at that moment?”
The investigation is ongoing, but police have found no evidence Stanford was specifically targeted. Homicide detectives haven’t ruled out the possibility he was the victim of a shooting meant to strike anyone at random — a marker of a rival gang dispute meant to send a message to a neighbourhood.
“By all accounts, this was a good man, hard worker,” said homicide investigator Det. Mike McGinn. “This is very tragic.”
Stanford is the latest victim of rising gun violence that’s seen Toronto surpass 400 confirmed shootings so far this year, the highest tally by early October in records that date back 15 years. His death marks the 35th fatal shooting in 2020 — up from 30 this time last year — and is part of a steady increase that last year saw the number of people injured or killed in shootings nearly triple since hitting a low in 2014.
Lawrence Heights is one of the hardest-hit areas. In 2020, there have been 39 shootings in 32 Division, a North York police district — among the highest in the city, and the bulk within Lawrence Heights. The drivebys that characterize some of the neighbourhood’s shootings are markers of gang disputes, police say.
According to his family, Stanford had been shot before. In his 20s, while walking home with friends, he and a friend were each shot in the leg, Ferreira said. Stanford made a total recovery but it changed him, his brother said.
“That’s why he got a car,” Ferreira said. “He said, ‘I don’t want to walk anymore.’ ”
Growing up in “The Jungle,” as Lawrence Heights is known, “it’s easy to become desensitized (and) this isn’t the first familiar name heard or face we’ve seen on the news,” wrote Stanford’s friend Ashley Boes on a GoFundMe fundraiser page for Shane’s funeral, now filled with dozens of posts expressing shocked grief.
“But Shane was not supposed to be taken from us this way. When the easiest thing he could have done was become another breaking news story, another statistic, he ran so far the other way from it striving to become something better and make a difference,” she wrote.
Introduced through a mutual friend in middle school, James and Stanford quickly bonded over video games, fuelling long sessions in Stanford’s basement with takeout pizza or wandering to the Metro down the street to grab snacks.
Stanford was quiet but not shy, and when he piped up his jokes “were always the best,” James said.
A few years older, Stanford held a big brother status to James and many others. They played basketball for hours at the Battlegrounds, the courts near Lawrence Heights Middle School, a passion Stanford would take to the YMCA, where he coached youth.
“Without him and his presence growing up, who knows what some of these kids would be doing,” Leticia Lopez wrote on the GoFundMe page.
Mehdi Zobeiry, general manager of the Central YMCA, noticed Stanford’s gift with children when he arrived 10 years ago for a student placement. When the apprenticeship was up, Zobeiry knew they needed to hire him.
Over the years, Zobeiry watched Stanford morph from a popular camp counsellor to a confident fitness instructor, known by many of the facility’s 10,000 members. He was beloved by his colleagues for his calm demeanour, enthusiasm for dressing up on holidays and quietly helping others without being asked.
“He was my camp counsellor for two years and later, my coworker. He made such a profound impact on my life,” wrote Christopher Minchala on the GoFundMe page. “I wish I’d told him this.”
Ambitious and eager to learn, Stanford regularly met with Zobeiry to discuss his career. He wanted a better life for his mom and younger sister, and aimed to be a general manager, like Zobeiry.
“That is why this is so personally devastating. I have seen this kid grow up at the Y,” Zobeiry said.
“And he was really, really trying to make himself better, and have a bright future.”
At the vigil Wednesday — the skid marks still visible on the lawn where Stanford’s car came to a rest — an exasperated Mike
Colle lamented that calls for help to stop the violence have gone unanswered.
The local city councillor had coincidentally met Stanford’s sister at last month’s community safety walk, borrowing lawn chairs for the event from the family.
“We were just here … asking for help. Nobody cares. Nobody helped,” he said. “We lost Shane because nobody cares.”
Colle said Thursday he will move a motion at council later this month to launch a safety and security task force that includes police, community advocates and Toronto Community Housing security. In spite of recent initiatives, such as a neighbourhood policing project, the shootings go “unabated,” he said.
Lawrence Heights resident and youth worker Ramla Adan was among those who’d attended last month’s safety walk. Wednesday night, she thought of the 50 youth who attend her weekly workshops; when violence like Stanford’s shooting happens, she has to “constantly” check in on their mental health.
“I just want people to understand that the impact of gun violence is not just that neighbourhood versus this neighbourhood. It affects innocent people. It affects children. It affects adults. Lawrence Heights is not any different from any other neighbourhood,” Adan said.
Two years ago, after he left Lawrence Heights to pursue graduate school in Sault Ste. Marie, James realized that for the first time in his life he wasn’t constantly looking over his shoulder — not afraid when a car driving by slowed down, not avoiding certain parts of the neighbourhood altogether. Growing up, he thought that’s “just how it was.”
“Then I realized it didn’t have to be that way,” he said.
Back living in the neighbourhood, he’s now committed to community work, recently helping form the residents group the Lawrence Heights Change Makers. “I’ve had all these feelings about the things that I can do, use my voice to help,” he said.
Stanford’s death left James feeling “defeated.” He’d mentioned the community safety walk to Stanford during their last conversation, about a week before the shooting, as the two friends chatted and caught up in the neighbourhood.
But it’s also given him a new resolve.
“I’m going to go harder than I ever did before.”