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.
What a sad day!!! This world is finished!!!
My God – praying for the devastated family. Rest assured, the perpetrators will be caught shortly.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/young-male-pronounced-dead-following-northwest-toronto-shooting-1.7022926
There was a man who is always cursing the God of Israël,(the God of heaven and earth, but one day,he got a lash with a cutlas Saying :O my God..
We hope for peace but no good come, for healing but was only terror and PIERRE Is To Blame,
Since my people are crushed,I am crushed ;I mourn,horror grips me..
O my Comforter in sorrow,my heart is faint within me listen to the cry of my people from a far away land..
This was an horrific incident that no parents should endure..
My prayers and thoughts are with his familly and loved ones 💜
Loosing a child is an indescribable hardship,one that leaves a profound and enduring Impact on the parents heart and soul..
The grief 😭is often accompained by a flood of memories..
My profound heartfelts to the familly…
The Bump Bandits strikes again !
@ you dishonorable lowgrade idiot; a young boy far away from his mother lost his life due to a world turned upside down, and that’s what you had to say? it shows how degrading you are as a person…..this place have for years known not to be one if you can afford a little better to move out of. Drug dealing is rampant and the Cops are hardly there when the shooting starts. Poor Mario heard & saw too much, he must have been told to shut his mouth, but the killers couldn’t take a chance, Mario was wiped out, as they do in St. Lucia. For sure his poor Soul is resting well in Heaven.
Those with wisdom will do well to keep on praying. Join a good Church, pray for each other.
i wonder what race the perpetrators are 🤔
no body like st lucians face it ! criminals done spoil it for everybody already
@ Cicero…..Yes it’s unfortunate the Lad was targeted…. and WHY ??? Poor
Parental supervision and denial. You know what we do and how we do it up in Montreal, Quebec, and Ottawa, the very same thing we do best over in Martinique (be in deeper denial won’t you there there there)……and to think some of us frawn upon the likes of a Vybz Kartel..
Truth is a lot of people think that these places are a better life. We have plenty problems in st Lucia. But these countries especially the parts our people can afford to live in are riddled with violence. I will say this : nothing wrong with going overseas. it’s nice. I can understand why some people like it. But as a black person, u have to be extra careful in those countries. Botham showed that and now this young man. That’s those that made the news. When u get old now, your debt for the house some of u think u own will get u. Tthe forever taxes, you can’t finish that. And let’s say u are lucky like. a Lottery winner and get to pay off your house and sell. The taxes waiting for u. Everything in those countries belong to the govt and very few people. I don’t bother myself to hustle my life away in those countries. A visit once in a while is fine with me. If u comfortable in st Lucia don’t make that mistake and go for hard life in those countries.
@Anonymous September 5, 2024 At 8:31 am
Hence the reason why the family members in St. Lucia need to stop begging folk who reside overseas. Amen
Apparently he was targeted, not a random victim, what on earth is a 15 year old boy involved in that warrants him being targeted apparently by two grown men in a speeding car and gunned down!!!????
Alot of thinking to be done !
So very sad,may be is the cross that causes that..
There is no other places in the world safe as St Lucia 🇱🇨,regarless of the outcome, will remain blessed wonderful and beautiul in her looks..
Where ever we are we are bless ❗
“Forget the former things ;do not dwell on the past..
See,I (God)am doing a new thing !
Now it springs up ; you do not perceive it ❓.. Jeremiah 43v19..
I have traveled many countries by air,by sea and in dreams, but I have never heard of another place so safe like st St Lucia, God bless !
Which will be a refuge for St Lucians who is abroad who has forget God, those who serve foreign gods..
God will send them back to their native lands will all kinds of sicknesses,dieases, Plague with bear hands into their laps and there they will die..
Move by the Sprit !
As for me,I am too afraid of my God,if he dont send me according to his will,I will not go without seeking answers from God ; for his eyes is upon all those who walk blameless and fear him..
This is what the LORD says :
To the ennuchs who walk in my ways and keep my words (commandments and keep my sabbath (Jesus Christ)
And let no one complain ; for I am a dry walking tree means living without the word of God,(God)and Jesus Christ in this world of 😈 evil..
Listen to me islands ;,hear this, you distant nations,
Seek the LORD while he may be found ;call on his name while he is near ❗
I am with you and will SAVE YOU ;declares the LORD Almighty –
I will SURELY SAVE YOU out of a distant places,no one will make you AFRAID..
I have put my words in your mouth and covers you with the the shadow of my hand…
@hounorablehighgrade best you change your name to cocaine grade because you just an ignorant idiot tbh . Not you alone see then world and what you saying makes no sense but ignorance.
Stop putting god in all this, there’s no god to begin with. The bible causes more confusion about violence and death.