Neighbourhood reeling after daylight shooting
Victim, who is now on ventilator, had urged his mother to move the family from troubled area
Tracey Leigh wanted out of her neighbourhood to prevent her family from being sucked into a spiral of violence.
On Wednesday, however, the violence caught up with them before they could act.
Nathan Leigh, who turned 20 on May16, was riding his bike in a parking lot behind the Toronto Community Housing townhouse on Orpington Cres., where he lived with his mom, grandmother and teenage sister, when he was shot multiple times in broad daylight. He was still fighting for his life at Sunnybrook Hospital Wednesday evening.
“They say there are seven entrance wounds, and he’s on a ventilator and he’s on heavy meds,” said his aunt, Diane Ravat, after visiting him in hospital. “He was shot in the lungs.”
Tracey Leigh was on the phone with her son moments before the shooting, about 9:30 a.m.
“I’m outside, I’m coming just now,” he told his mom. Then she heard the gunshots. When she ran to the parking lot, she saw a crowd of people. “Who got shot?” she asked, before seeing her son on the ground. His face was covered in blood and he was gasping for air.
“His eyes were open. I don’t know if he heard me when I said, ‘Mom’s here, mom’s here. The ambulance is coming.’ ”
According to his family and neighbours, Nathan Leigh is a homebody who likes video games, basketball and rap, and doesn’t run with a bad crowd, his mom said at the hospital, where he underwent emergency surgery. “He was outside at the wrong time. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
Nathan Leigh had asked her to move the family away from Orpington Cres. because of violence in the area, she said.
The shooting occurred about a 10-minute walk northwest of where Candice Rochelle Bobb — 35 years old and pregnant — was shot and killed on May 15. Her baby survived. Last summer, Lecent Ross, a 14-yearold girl, was fatally shot in nearby Jamestown.
The Leigh family has lived there for almost 12 years but applied to move out of the TCH townhouse just south of Kendleton Dr. two years ago. After they applied to transfer, they were told there was a long wait list, Tracey Leigh said.
Ravat told her nephew repeatedly to “keep his head down” and avoid trouble. Don’t play into the tough guy routine, she urged him.
“In that area, all they want to do is kill each other — over what? Honest, over what?” she asked.
There have been 68 shootings causing death or injury this year, according to Toronto Police. Of those, 19 were fatal.
Before the shooting, Leigh was thinking of registering for classes this fall to finish high school, his family said.
Gerry Luongo, a neighbour, says he sometimes worked with Leigh, selling scrap metal. “He’s a good kid. I almost called him this morning to come and help.”
Toronto Police said they suspect there were at least two gunmen who fled in a blue Nissan Versa.
“We are outraged and disgusted that this can happen right across from a school at 9:30 in the morning,” said superintendent Ron Taverner.
Several nearby schools — including Greenholme Junior Middle School, West Humber Collegiate, and Henry Carr Catholic Secondary School — were initially ordered to hold-and-secure as police began to investigate.
Kim George, a 39-year-old early childhood education worker, lives a few doors from the shooting.
She was stunned when she learned about the daytime shooting and that her neighbour, who she had seen the day before, was fighting for his life.
The shots were fired about the same time as George’s 12-year-old son leaves home to take the school bus.
“It’s scary,” George said. “I’ll have to tell him to be more careful and walk with someone.” With files from Brennan Doherty and Nick Westoll