She was the centre of all family events — a shameless extrovert who captivated those around her with the hilarious stories she had in spades. She was warm, loving and constantly available to support her relatives in need.
Candice Rochelle Bobb, 35, of Malton, was nothing if not family oriented, according to those who knew her, a characteristic most evident when it came to her kids. Her eldest turns 16 this week, her second is 12 years old.
She was awaiting the arrival of her third this fall.
Instead, her baby is fighting for its life inside Sunnybrook hospital. If it survives, the four-months premature infant — a boy, according to a family source who did not want to be named — will never meet its mother, never hear her stories or feel her warmth.
Late Sunday night, Bobb, known as Rochelle, was a back seat passenger in a car parked near Jamestown Cres. and John Garland Blvd. when it was struck by gunfire. She was the only one of four occupants who was shot.
The driver went immediately to Etobicoke General Hospital, where doctors pronounced Bobb dead, but successfully delivered her baby via an emergency C-section. Police have not released any information about the child other than that it is in stable condition.
Bobb and her infant are the latest victims of a surge in violent crime in Toronto this year, hers yet another name added to a growing list of people killed on Jamestown Cres. in the northern Etobicoke neighbourhood of Rexdale in recent years.
Speaking frankly, Toronto police Supt. Ron Taverner, who heads the police division that includes Rexdale, called the violence “just disgusting.”
“We’re all kind of in shock,” he said at a news conference Monday, less than 12 hours after the shooting. “The whole community is outraged, the whole city is outraged that this could happen.”
Toronto Mayor John Tory called the shooting death “a travesty.”
“I want to express my sympathies to her friends and to her family and my heart goes out in particular to her baby — no baby should come into this world without a mother. It really will, I hope, redouble our efforts to deal with all of these kinds of incidents.”
Homicide detectives probing the death — Toronto’s 29th in 2016, nearly double the number at this time last year — stressed they are in the early stages of the investigation.
Many key questions remain unanswered. Chief among them: who killed Bobb, and why.
Asked if someone specifically wanted Bobb dead, Lead investigator Det.-Sgt. Mike Carbone could only say the car in which Bobb was riding was targeted, “for a reason only known to the offender at this point.”
Several of Bobb’s family members and friends requested privacy when contacted by the Star on Monday. One person close to Bobb, who asked not to be named, said Bobb “didn’t deserve this.”
“I know for a fact she wasn’t the target because she had no enemies. No one would hate her.”
Carbone provided a loose sketch of the hours leading up to the shooting. Around 8 p.m., Bobb and two others travelled together in a vehicle to Jamestown Cres. and John Garland Blvd. to pick up a fourth passenger. The quartet then travelled to the east end of the city where they went to a basketball game.
Around 11 p.m., they returned to the Jamestown and John Garland area, not far from Toronto’s western border with Mississauga, to drop off one of the occupants of the vehicle. It was as the vehicle was stopped that one or more shooters approached the car and unleashed an unknown number of bullets.
Bobb was seated in the back of the car at the time of the shooting, Carbone said, adding that none of the people inside left the vehicle, and none of the occupants were known to police.
Police are investigating the possibility the shooter or shooters then travelled eastbound on John Garland. Throughout the day Monday, they canvassed the neighbourhood looking for witnesses and surveillance footage.
Along Jamestown Cres. Monday afternoon, residents peered out their doors observing police, others chatted outside, lamenting another shooting. Bobb’s death is the third in just over a year that has occurred on Jamestown Cres.
In March 2015, Donald Beckles, 46, was shot dead while smoking a cigarette on the porch of his Jamestown Cres. home. Then, July 9, Lecent Ross, 14, was killed at a Jamestown Cres. home by a single bullet from an illegal semi-automatic handgun. A 13-year-old boy was later charged with manslaughter in connection with her death.
Enid Jacinthe, who runs a youth program in the area, said the Jamestown community is lacking in resources on all fronts. “We need more officers. We need more enforcement from the law,” Jacinthe said. “I think it’s time for a cleanup.”
Pastor Keaton Austin, an outspoken Jamestown resident, is “disgusted” with the shooting. He saw the victim around the neighbourhood sometimes but didn’t know her well.
Jamestown, he believes, should become a gated community.
“This time I’m going to push for it . . . there’s a lot of us brothers and sisters getting murdered, and if we don’t stop the murdering and if we don’t try to solve the problems, they’re going to keep killing one another,” he said.
Deputy mayor Vincent Crisanti, city councillor for the area, stopped by the area Monday to express his sympathies for the victim and the community.
“A mother to be shot and die and not be able to see her son or daughter come into the world,” he said. “It’s devastating.”(WENDY GILLIS)
Link: https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2016/05/16/pregnant-woman-shot-and-killed-in-etobicoke-baby-in-serious-condition.html
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