Shyanne Charles, 14-year-old Toronto shooting victim
The mother of the 14-year-old girl who was fatally shot last week at a Scarborough block party says she couldn't believe it was her daughter on the ground after shots were fired.
Afifa Charles told CTV that she was at the party last Monday, where her daughter Shyanne was one of two people killed. Twenty-three people were injured in the shootings.
"I wanted to die that same night," Ms. Charles told the television station Thursday in an exclusive interview.
She said her daughter was "happy" and "loving." English was Shyanne's favourite subject in school and she'd recently brought home a report card with her best mark ever in the subject, Ms. Charles said.
As she prepares for her daughter's funeral on Saturday, Ms. Charles said she wants the gunman to know "how many lives he ruined. And I hope he suffers like how I'm suffering now."
One arrest has been made in connection to the shooting. Nahom Tsegazab, 19, was charged with reckless discharge of a firearm, indicating that police do not believe he fired the fatal shots.
Friends of Shyanne told The Globe last week that she was the eldest of four children living with Ms. Charles in a townhouse in the Kingston-Galloway area. She frequented youth groups and played basketball.
Also killed in the shooting was 23-year-old Joshua Yasay, a recent graduate of York University's criminology program, who wanted to become a police officer and had recently started a business in Ajax called Goodfellas Barber Lounge.