They were just sitting in the car talking about “life and death” when a loud pop went off.

“It sounded like a fire cracker,” recalled Mary Acheampomaa. “I said, ‘What the hell was that?’”

There was silence in the car. Then, from the backseat, came a voice.

“I’m hurt.”

Jenas Nyarko, 31, was, indeed, hurt. It was going to get worse.

“She was right behind me on the passenger side and we quickly saw she had been hit,” said Mary. “The bullet had gone right under her breast and into her chest. I think it hit her in the heart.”

There were four people in the car: Acheampomaa, her husband, another woman and Jenas.

Only one was hit in what Toronto Police believe was a random shooting early Sunday on Replin Rd., in the Allen Rd.-Lawrence Ave. W. area.

Meanwhile, the people in the car frantically called 911.

“We tried to work on her but there was little we could do,” said a shaken Mary. “Jenas knew she had been shot. ‘I’m hurt’ were her final words.”

Mary said police have the car and she’s hopeful they catch the killers.

“I think the guys in the SUV that drove by were shooting at whatever. It had nothing to do with us. No one in the car has any business with anybody in that SUV. It was a drive-by shooting for no reason.”

They had returned from a funeral service and a related gathering for a fellow native of Ghana, who recently died of illness. “We were just talking about life and death when this happened,” said Mary.

Constance Love was not in the car but was with Jenas just before the shooting.

“I was offered a drive to the funeral with Mary and Jenas but decided to drive my own car there. I offered Jenas a drive home but she went with them. There are different scenarios in how it could have gone.”

But it didn’t matter which one of them was hit. It might as well have been each of them.

“We are very close and we are so devastated,” Constance, a mother of three, said, as she cried hysterically. “This is really hurting us. Jenas was my good friend. She was such a wonderful, strong person. She was such a good person. I am so sad. I can’t believe it.”

She said her pal worked trying to help people in a shelter and spent the rest of her time helping her friends.

“I am a more introverted person and she was more outgoing and she would tell me not to worry about what people think of you. Just be yourself,” she said. “It’s so unfair because Jenas didn’t get the chance to get married and have kids. She had her life stolen from here by these people and they also stole my friend.”

They were all already upset about their friend, Mavis Ohemeng, who died of illness.

“She was wonderful, too,” said Constance. In fact that is what she, Mary and Jenas were discussing when these thugs struck. “Life is so short,” said Constance. “We were already upset and then this happens for no reason. What has happened to our City of Toronto?”

Whatever it is, it’s happening a lot in 2018. This was Homicide 47. There was another just hours later to make it 48.

And there have been a lot of innocent people hit by random gunfire — some killed, some almost killed. In fact, that was one of the topics that the people in the car were talking about — specifically the young sisters, ages five and nine, who were shot in a playgorund on June 14.

“Jenas was as upset about that as we all were. She said, ‘What is going on here?’”

Mary, a mother of two, said she will remember how brave Jenas was after being shot.

“Jenas had to be in pain, but she didn’t even scream,” she said.

She was the only one in the car who didn’t.

 

Source: Toronto Sun