A DECADE SINCE DANZIG: Community remains scarred as mourning runs deep

Almost ten years after Toronto’s worst mass shooting, the community around the Danzig St. housing complex in Scarborough remains scarred.

Outside one of the townhomes — near Lawrence Ave. E. and Morningside Ave. — is a photo of honours student Joshua Yasay, 23, and Shyanne Charles, 14.

Both were killed July 16, 2012, in a hail of bullets that also injured 22 others, including a baby.

The shooting made international headlines.

“They died for no reason. They died for nothing,” said Ruth Weisz, remembering the horror she and her husband felt as they searched for their 15-year-old son.

“My husband was running all over the neighbourhood looking for my son. He was terrified,” said Weisz, who has lived on Danzig for 20 years.

Her son was safe – buying pizza blocks away when the shootout erupted.

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A memorial to Jaydin Simpson — a 17-year-old who was gunned down in June 2019 at the same Danzig St. housing complex where the city’s worst mass shooting unfolded a decade ago — is seen on Friday, July, 8, 2022.Photo by Scott Laurie /Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

Mike Reynolds was with his children at their home — facing the Toronto Community Housing townhouse complex’s parking lot where the party took place.

“It was really hot that night, so we were getting a cool breeze on the porch,” he recalled. “And the party was happening and we saw people showing up and showing up and we thought, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to be good.'”

Rival gang members – teenagers — were behind the deadly violence that involved a 9mm handgun, a .40 calibre handgun and a 9mm submachine gun.

Siveaya Bailey remembers being six years old and eager to attend the block party that day.

She’s thankful she did not.

“I was in my house and I heard everything and a saw everybody running. And I was scared,” she said.

Then, three years ago, she lost a former classmate in another flash of violence in the same parking lot.

That’s where there is a memorial for high school student Jaydin Simpson, 17, shot and killed June 28, 2019 – mere hours after graduating.

Bailey knew him since elementary school.

“I was sad that he passed because another person that was going to make it out of here was gone,” Bailey said.

Shelley Parsons’ Danzig St. unit is steps away from where the victims fell in 2012.

“I moved in seven years ago and it’s been pretty quiet here,” she said while watering her lawn. “We got a lot of neighbourhood officers that are coming through all the time.”

“It is very sad. But it’s happening everywhere,” Parsons said. “Until they control the gun law, what are we supposed to do?”

slaurie@postmedia.com

Twitter: @_ScottLaurie