Residents of a west-end neighbourhood are trying to get over the shock of watching a baby-faced youth in a high school jacket die before their eyes after he was gunned down Monday evening in a hydro field.
Adrian Johnston, 14, was shot in the chest, stomach and shoulder about 5 p.m. in a field behind homes on Eileen Avenue, near Scarlett Road and St. Clair Avenue West.
“We were all around him and that poor kid looked at me,” said Richard Kolovski, who ran to Adrian’s side. “He’s just a baby, without any hair on his chin. I never watched a kid die before.”
He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Residents, whose homes back onto the field along the south boundary of Lambton Golf and Country Club, heard three shots and saw a tall man in dark clothing and green ball cap run east through the field, toward Scarlett Road.
Police were checking surveillance footage that may have captured a suspect at a highrise complex on nearby Woolner Avenue where the hydro field crosses.
It was the fourth fatal shooting in Toronto in the last three weeks, in what residents are calling a burgeoning drug war.
