GUILTY Canada - Lecent Ross, 14, shot to death, Jamestown Crescent, Toronto, 9 July 2015

Very sad update,
http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2015/07/09/police-investigating-shooting-of-14-year-old-girl.html
rbbm.
"Neighbourhood devastated after 14-year-old girl fatally shot in Etobicoke
Neighbours and friends describe Lecent Ross as ‘a pretty good kid. She’s good at school.’
"



A 14-year-old girl has died in hospital following a Thursday morning shooting in Rexdale, police have confirmed.

Friends and neighbours identified the victim as Lecent Ross.

She was shot in her public housing complex on Jamestown Cres. near Martin Grove and Finch Ave W. around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday.

Just after noon, police forensics teams could be seen leaving a unit with paper evidence bags and sitting astride 4x4 all terrain vehicles.

Neighbours gathered to discuss what had happened, piecing together events.

After visiting family in the morning, Ross had stopped into the unit but no one knew why. A single mother, her 10-year-old daughter and three teenage sons lived there, but none were the same age or known to be friends with Ross, neighbours said.

No one heard any shots but witnesses told neighbours that Ross had been shot accidentally while handling a handgun inside the unit."
 
http://www.torontosun.com/2015/07/09/girl-14-accidentally-shoots-self-in-face-source
rbbm.

"Det. Rich Petrie said at a 4 p.m. press conference that they are considering the incident a "suspicious death" and not an accident at this time. The gun, an illegal semi-automatic handgun, has been seized. Police described it as a .40-calibre Smith and Wesson handgun.

Petrie added he does not know who owns the gun. He said those who were present during the incident are co-operating and being interviewed by police."
 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...-illegal-handgun-toronto-police-say-1.3144758
rbbm.
"Det. Rich Petrie told a news conference the shot came from an an "illegal, prohibited, semi-automatic handgun."

He said investigators are looking into reports the shooting may have been accidental, and are treating the death as suspicious.

"People knew about this gun, it didn't just show up. It came from somewhere. Somebody knew about it, somebody could have called Crime Stoppers," Petrie said.

"Somebody was aware of that gun and they chose to turn a blind eye, and this is where we are.
"


snip>


"The gun will be tested for DNA, fingerprints, and ballistics to determine if it's been used in any other incidents in the city, he said.

Investigators are trying to determine whether the girl fired the fatal shot or if someone else was involved."
 
http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2015/07/10/lecent-rosss-mother-too-grief-stricken-to-speak.html

"The mother of 14-year-old shooting victim Lecent Ross planned to speak with the media shortly after noon on Friday, but she was too lost in grief to face the media as planned, a pastor said.

“The mother’s crying,” Pastor Keaton Austin of the Abundant Life Assembly said to reporters outside the family home in Rexdale at 2.30 pm on Friday.

“She’s weeping,” Austin said of Alicia Jesquith, Lecent’s mother. “I don’t want to see mothers crying any more.”

snip>

"Neighbours described Lecent as a studious, straight A student who had just graduated from Greenholm Junior Middle School and who was excited at the prospect of attending high school in Mississauga in the far.

She had worked a lot as a babysitter in the neighbourhood after moving there with her mother and baby brother two years ago.

“They lost a good young lady in the community,” Austin said. “She was very nice. She was friendly.”
 
I feel for the family.......10:30 a.m. while visiting another residence in the area -- who would think that could be so dangerous?

The whole ''gansta'' wannabe stuff is getting pretty ''tiresome'' -- RIP Lucent

rbbm.

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2...4-comes-amid-citywide-spike-in-shootings.html


"Indeed, a trend known as “community guns” accounts in part for the level of gun violence in the city. That’s the sharing of one or more guns, stashed in a hiding spot known to multiple people, like a library for firearms. Earlier this year, members of Toronto Police Gun and Gang Task Force discovered a cache of firearms in an east-end park, adjacent to a housing area.

This borrowing system has significantly lowered the barrier to entry for someone seeking a gun, and means a single gun can be responsible for a wide array of crimes by more than one person.

The small size of many handguns means they can be easily stashed and hidden, one of the biggest challenges in the fight against illegal guns, said Insp. Bryan Bott of the task force.

Police also struggle to get the kind of information that actually leads to a gun seizure, Bott said. It can sometimes take a while to locate the subject of a tip from the public, and by then, the gun may have been moved or left in the possession of someone else.

Both Bott and Petrie implored members of the public with knowledge of an illegal gun to come forward, either to police or Crime Stoppers, with information that’s as detailed as possible."
 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...rge-2-in-lecent-ross-shooting-death-1.3190473

"Toronto police charge 2 in Lecent Ross shooting death
Police set to hold news conference to update case on Friday
"

"Toronto police are set to release more information about the two suspects and the charges they face at a Friday news conference.

Alicia Jasquith, Ross's mother, said she's aware of the arrests, but police didn't tell her who is charged or with what.

"It's far from closure," she told CBC News.

Jasquith said she plans to be in court when the accused appear".

http://www.cp24.com/news/man-youth-...-with-fatal-shooting-of-lecent-ross-1.2515986

"An 18-year-old man and a youth have been charged in connection with the shooting death of a 14-year-old girl in Rexdale last month."
 
Update.

"Boy, 13, charged in shooting death of 14-year-old girl
Lecent Ross was killed July 9 at a Jamestown Cres. home by a single bullet from an illegal semi-automatic handgun".



http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2...ed-in-shooting-death-of-14-year-old-girl.html
rbbm

"Jesquith urged parents to be vigilant about knowing whether their children are around people who have access to a gun, or if they have one in their home.

“Check in their bags and know who their friends are. Know who they’re hanging around with every day,” she said.

Ross’s father Charles Ross said the fact charges have been laid “brings a little bit of happiness” and that he hopes the family will have some questions answered.

“The older kids are giving the younger kids guns,” he said, urging anyone with information to come forward."
 
My heart goes out to Lecent's family and community.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/07/09/lecent-rosss-mother-mourns-painful-anniversary.html
She should have turned 15 last month.

On June 11, Lecent Ross should have been celebrating her 15th birthday and by now should have just finished her first year of high school.

But instead of throwing her a birthday party last month, Lecent’s friends and family were planting flowers on her grave. And on Saturday, they’ll be marking the first anniversary of her death — 12 months since the 14-year-old was shot and killed by a single bullet fired from an illegal handgun while she was at her friend’s Rexdale home, just a stone’s throw from her own.

And precious little has changed since then, her mother told the Star — not the pain of loss, not the cycle of gun violence that took Lecent’s life.

“My family is broken,” Alicia Jasquith said in an interview at her home on Jamestown Cres., the same one she had moved into just three years ago with Lecent and her two younger children.

“We’re still broken.”

“In my 26 years of policing,” Det. Rich Petrie, the original lead investigator on the case, told the Star in an email, “this is the one case that haunts me.”

“We need people to come forward when things are happening or they hear information, to share that information with us,” Taverner said. “As much as it might be tough on, let’s say, a mother or father to say that their kid has a gun in their bedroom, they may be saving their life or someone else’s life. And yes, there will be consequence, no question about that, but you have to accept that the consequences may be way less than what would happen if they shoot someone or they shot themselves.”

Lecent’s uncle, Troy Amos-Ross, said he’s never spoken to the teens or anyone else who was in the house where Lecent was shot, but hopes that they have learned from “all the pain” her death caused. Whatever’s being done about gun violence is “never enough,” he said, and called on the community to “stand together” to prevent yet another “senseless crime,” instead of waiting for another tragedy to happen.
 
So very sad.. Rest together in peace and love.

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May 24 2022​

''Ever since Lecent Ross was fatally shot in a Jamestown townhome in 2015 at the age of 14, her mother Alicia Jasquith wanted to be buried next to her.

Now, after Jasquith's own death, her community is hoping to grant her dying wish.

"As close to Lecent as possible," Jasquith told Jennifer Francis, 41, a long-time friend she moved in with 10 months before her death.''

''Jasquith died on May 3. Multiple sclerosis — a disease for which there is currently no cure — robbed her of her ability to walk and then talk. She was "skin and bones," said Francis; adding that life had "put her through really a lot."

But the "worst day," Jasquith said, was July 9, 2015, when Lecent was fatally shot by a 13-year-old boy.

According to the teen's defence lawyer, the shooting was an accident — his client hadn't realized he was holding a loaded weapon. The boy pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide in November of 2016.''

'What they never talk about is this love'​

Lecent's death prompted a wave of outrage over gun violence. It also prompted an outpouring of community love and support that Kofi Sankofa is hoping to tap into again now.''
 

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