According to Toronto police data, Brookhaven-Amesbury, the North York neighbourhood where JahVai was killed, has long struggled with gun violence. Between 2014 and 2024, there were 37 shootings in the area, home to nearly 20,000 people.

During the pandemic, Brookhaven, which extends east-west between Jane Street and Black Creek Drive and north-south between Lawrence Avenue West and Tretheway Drive, saw a brief reprieve from the violence; in 2020, there were no reported shootings. But incident rates have crept up to pre-pandemic levels since. Last year, seven people were shot in the neighbourhood; a figure not seen since 2019.

“When we consider the pervasive, chronic and structural way in which Black communities are disproportionately impacted by homicide and the significant gap and culturally responsive services available to support them, we understand that firearm fatality is indeed a public health crisis for Black communities,” said Tanya Sharpe, a professor in University of Toronto’s faculty of social work.

In April 2022, Brandan Brooks, Mya’s father was shot and killed inside a home on the M’Chigeeng First Nation in the Manitoulin District of Ontario.

Mya’s mother, Aisha Martin, said Brooks was a visitor staying at a M’Chigeeng First Nation home when several suspects invaded the house. Brooks was shot and killed during the alleged attack inside the home. Seven suspects, six from the GTA, were initially charged in connection with his death. The trial of a North York man who is charged with first-degree murder, ended in a mistrial earlier this year. His case has been adjourned to December in a Sudbury court. Four of the other accused are slated to be sentenced for manslaughter later this month. 

After his death Mya said she “just couldn’t focus on anything,” and, “I started smoking (cannabis) frantically, as a way to escape my feelings.”

Her school attendance plunged, as she started skipping classes.

“I’d only go to school to go to basketball practice and the games because that was my escape,” she said. It also reminded her of the time spent playing basketball with her father.

Mya said she was shunned by a some of her friends, who feared that being around her could put them in harm’s way.

“I personally had to isolate myself and deal with everything alone,” she said.

His widow, Aisha and their three surviving children: Mya, and her two younger siblings, 11 and 15, are still dealing with the lengthy court process. 

“It’s one of the most challenging things I’ve ever had to navigate,” Aisha said.

“It’s something that doesn’t come with a handbook.”

The ordeal kept her young children out of school for at least two months because the grieving process was so overwhelming, Aisha said.

“They were all going through different things,” including loss of appetite, bouts of depression and a lack of motivation.

“They weren’t functioning,” she said.

At an Aug. 21 vigil for JahVai, Aisha spoke to the gathering about gaps in a system that’s not always properly equipped to assist people and how important it is to connect with people and experts to share their experience.

“There were limited resources,” she said of the therapy services offered through government-funded agencies such as Yorktown Family Services, which specializes in dealing with children. Aisha said she was on a waiting list for close to a year, before she and her children were able to access therapy through Yorktown.

They have already burned through the allocated therapy sessions, as the court case is ongoing.

“It reopens all those wounds, and it then delays the healing process having to navigate through the court system,” Aisha said.

The family was also displaced over fears of her children’s safety. With limited options, they bunked with family and friends and even relied on the city’s shelter program for several months. At the end of last year, Martin was finally able to relocate the family to a permanent home.

“Starting over fresh is challenging,” she said. “My kids struggled.”

Their experience mirrors that of JahVai’s mother Holly Roy, who, for nearly a month now, has been unable to return to the apartment where her son was killed. She said her family is still waiting on the city to help her find a new place to live. The mayor’s staff says they are searching for places but have not found one yet that would be ready before October.

“In my culture, we need the community to be able to grieve, to process,” Holly said this week. “We can’t begin to heal from this while displaced.”

Mya and her mother have taken up advocacy against gun violence, via the One by One Movement, a Toronto-area anti-violence organization. 

Aisha and JahVai’s mother, Holly, first met through their advocacy with the organization and bonded over their shared trauma.

“It’s important as communities to come together, and not only when it reaches our doorstep, because what happened to Holly, and what happened to me can happen to any of us,” Aisha said.

Their families have jointly advocated for anti-bullying campaigns and raised awareness about gun violence through the One by One Movement.

“Our kids became family and were able to form bonds through tragedy,” Aisha said of her family’s close ties to the Roy family.

Holly has told the Star that this wasn’t the first time that her family has dealt with violence.

“His (JahVai’s) older brother is a survivor of gun violence, and his sister is a survivor of gun violence and bullying,” Holly told the Star during a celebration of life for her son.

Aisha and Mya are not only coping with the debilitating effects of trauma but it has also given them insights on the types of supports young people need in the aftermath of a tragedy such as JahVai’s death.

Professor Sharpe said the experience of families like Roy’s and Martin-Brooks’ speaks to the “chronic pervasive frequency,” in which Black, racialized and Indigenous communities are exposed to gun violence.

“As you try to take a breath to attempt to mourn and grieve the loss, you are faced with another tragic, often senseless death of a community member,” Sharpe said.

She said institutions like churches, schools, and other service providers need to “position ourselves in a trauma-informed way to be culturally responsive,” and “hold space for the diverse ways of grieving and understanding that everybody’s grief journey is different.”

Service providers and educators need to spot and properly deal with anomalies in behaviour that might be a signal that there is unchecked trauma, Sharpe added.

Parents must also pay keen attention to other symptoms of grief such as of loss of appetite, withdrawing from social activities and sleep disturbances, Sharpe said.

Karlene Haughton, manager of grief services and intake at Yorktown Family Services, which has several locations, including a site on Jane Street, near where JahVai was killed, said they strive to offer grieving children the appropriate therapy. Therapists at Yorktown apply strategies such as art therapy as a way to get a child sharing how they feel.

“We ask the schools to be aware that they are going to go through changes which sometimes affects their concentration and their behaviour,” Haughton said. “That’s the first place that normally gets affected.”

She said parents should have an open and honest conversation with a child dealing with the aftermath of a violent event and allow them space to share how they feel “because that’s a part of healing as well.”

Toronto police announced this week that they have charged a 16-year-old, who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, with first-degree murder and five additional gun-related offences in JahVai’s death. Investigators are still searching for two more youth suspects, two males aged 17 and 18, both wanted on Canada-wide warrants for first-degree murder.

Overall, year-to-date Toronto police crime statistics show a decline in shootings and homicides. After JahVai’s Aug. 16 death, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow told the Star that shootings and firearm discharges had dropped to 179, at that point in the year, compared to 303 during the same roughly 8-month period in 2024.

But the mayor said she’s alarmed by the “randomness” of recent shootings, in which offenders “just shoot up a neighbourhood to claim that this is their turf.

“It’s just not acceptable,” she said.

Chow also acknowledged that quoting positive crime statistics “does not erase any pain” for JahVai‘s mother or for anyone who has lost a child to gun violence.

Mya blames the pervasive nature of violence in her former neighbourhood on young people’s easy access to firearms.

“They’re way too easily accessible,” she said. “That needs to be dealt with.”

Aretha McCarthy, a certified child mental health specialist and founder of DevelopME Youth, a non-profit to empower Black youth and their families, said parents should not allow young kids to suppress their feelings and “to be enraged themselves” at an eight-year-old boy being shot.

“That builds up anger, then that becomes resentment, then that becomes hate, then that becomes retaliation,” she said.

With files from Calvi Leon and Abby O’Brien