A teenager born in Canada to Saint Lucian parents died in a hail of bullets near a mall in Toronto one day before the start of the new school year.
Mario Giddings was fifteen and lived near the mall.
Bullet-riddled stores and cars and shattered glass bore silent, graphic testimony to the ferocity of the attack on Monday at about 7:44 pm.
Someone had also placed a few flowers at the scene of the deadly gun violence.
Mario’s heartbroken aunt, Fortunata Giddings, who was also his guardian because the youngster’s parents were in Saint Lucia, appeared on CTV News Toronto calling for justice.
Fortunata told CTV News Mario was afraid to go to school.
“He afraid to go there because I think they had a fight there with a few of them and then he telling me: ‘Oh, you have to look for another place for me to go to school because those boys will come back to me’,” the aunt recalled.
Mario’s mother, Lea Seraphin, who lives at Millet, was in shock and unable to contain her emotions when she spoke to St. Lucia Times.
She said Mario’s Aunt had called with the tragic news of his fatal shooting.
Lea disclosed that Mario came to Saint Lucia when he was three and returned to Canada when he was ten.
She told St. Lucia Times the teenager had lived in Canada for the past five years.
Lea said Mario, the last of four children, was a bright youngster, quiet and loving.
“He was always telling me, ‘Mommy I love you.’ Always coming and hug me, would come and lie down by me,” the mother recounted.
Lea, who lived in Canada for over a decade before returning to settle in Saint Lucia, also said she would miss Mario’s laughter.
According to news reports, people saw a black sedan fleeing the scene of the teenager’s shooting.
Mario’s mother told St. Lucia Times that her son, who had a sense of justice, wanted to become a police officer.
