TORONTO

Those who knew and loved Abshir Hassan say the 31-year-old held a special place in his heart for at-risk kids as he chased his dream of becoming a full-time teacher in Lawrence Heights — the sometimes tough neighbourhood where he grew up.

Sadly, the much-loved supply teacher who routinely mentored youngsters to steer clear of violence was gunned down in a deadly triple shooting that has rocked the tight-knit community.

“He just gave of himself, always,” Lawrence Heights Middle School’s Principal David Debelle said Tuesday, his pain palpable as he fondly remembered his slain staff member.

With tears streaming down his face, Debelle explained how Hassan finished teachers college and began volunteering at Lawrence Heights four years ago with the Beyond 3:30 after-school program.

More recently, Hassan was hired as an occasional teacher typically working three days a week with kids in Grades 6, 7 and 8, he said, adding the city’s 23rd murder victim of the year often taught the remaining days at several other schools in the area.

“I was so impressed with him and I just really wanted to see him realize his dream of becoming a teacher,” the school principal said, explaining Hassan had a bright future that will never come to fruition now.

He recalled how Hassan spent his lunch-hours running pick-up basketball games at the school and volunteered to DJ the Grade 8 graduation just two weeks ago.

“He was beloved by all our students and parents,” Debelle said. “He always had time for them.”

“He was an absolutely tremendous role model, for all of us really,” he said, adding Hassan will be “dearly missed.”

As Debelle spoke to media on the front steps of Lawrence Heights MS, dozens of teachers, students and parents gathered inside to console each other after learning Hassan had been killed out front of his apartment on nearby Flemington Rd. in a shooting that also left a man, 22, and a woman, 18, badly hurt.

“This is senseless!” one irate mother, who wouldn’t give her name, shouted out front of the school. “Why take him?”

She said Hassan was “always there” for her twin daughters who remained close to their former teacher even after graduating from Lawrence Heights.

“Who ever did this is a coward,” the woman said angrily. “They took a special person away.”

One of her girls, 15, said she and her peers are having a difficult time coming to grips with the fact their mentor is gone.

“He would tell us kids to enjoy life while we have it,” said the teen, who wouldn’t give her name. “He was like one of the best teachers I knew.”

Hassan’s friends are also stunned by his violent death.

“This is so awful... I can’t believe it,” Reneé Tellis, 28, said.

She said her friend often offered “good and reasonable advice” and he “had a really great way of departing knowledge.”

Many students also took to social media to express their sadness over their fallen teacher.

— With files by Angela Hennessey

chris.doucette@sunmedia.ca