Growing up, Carol Roache’s three kids were in the habit of saying “I love you” to their mom whenever they parted ways.

The echo of those words is all Roache has left. Her youngest child, Jamal, 26, was shot and killed in North York Thursday night. Her other two children, Chemere and Yannick, were gunned down within months of each other in 2002. They were both 18 when they died.

“I don’t deserve to lose three children,” Roache told the Star from her apartment at Bathurst St. and Lakeshore Blvd. “There is no feeling to describe what I’m feeling.”

Sitting on her couch, playing the R&B CD that she and Jamal listened to together four days ago, Roache described her son as an intelligent, ambitious man. He was attending business school at George Brown College, and had plans to launch a smartphone app, she said. The two of them, “as close as a mother and son could be,” spent all of Thursday together, discussing their futures. She made his favourite dinner — barbecued chicken with mashed potatoes.

“He was supposed to come back the next day to finish the leftovers,” she said.

Shortly after Jamal left that night at around 9 p.m., he was killed in what Toronto police are calling a targeted ambush.

Roache, who has no other children, is calling for the city take a stand against gun violence.

“This city has to do something about the gunplay that’s going on in our streets,” she said, adding a lack of education and an absence of role models for young people are part of the problem. She’s willing to speak up about her personal loss if it helps bring about change.

“If I can prevent another mother from losing her child, I’m going to do so.”

On Thursday night, police were called to a strip mall at 3306 Keele St. around 11:30 p.m. after reports of gunfire. Jamal, who was known to police, had been at a pool hall in the complex, said Det. Sgt. Steve Ryan. As he was leaving, a dark Honda Civic pulled up outside and a gunman exited the passenger side, opening fire. Security footage of the building’s exterior shows Jamal falling to the ground injured as someone continues to fire shots at point-blank range. Jamal suffered six to eight gunshot wounds, according to Ryan.

“Nobody deserves to die like that,” he said.

Police do not have any suspects, Ryan said.

Jamal Roache was convicted of drug trafficking in 2012, his former defence attorney confirmed Monday.

Jamal’s brother and sister also died in late-night shootings.

In March 2002, Chemere Roache was shot in the head while leaving Etobicoke’s Apollo nightclub with her boyfriend. Four men later pleaded guilty to a number of charges, including manslaughter and aggravated assault. A statement of facts from the court proceedings said Chemere’s boyfriend, who was shot in the leg, was the intended target, the Star reported at the time.

Nine months later, as Roache prepared to have her family over for a holiday feast, her son Yannick was shot to death on Christmas Eve. He had been tending to his girlfriend’s toddler outside her home near Jane St. and Finch Ave. when he was attacked from behind. Police told the Star at the time that Yannick was known to police and targeted. Two men were charged in 2004, but were released after the only eyewitness was deported and her testimony deemed inadmissible, according to media reports.

Responding to the shooting of Jamal Roache, Amanda Galbraith, a spokeswoman for John Tory, said the mayor-elect will push for a federal crackdown on the flow of illegal guns coming in from the U.S. and work to create opportunities for at-risk youth.

“We will no longer look at the gun violence occurring in our city as being isolated only to ‘some’ communities. This is one city and when someone is killed or seriously injured in a gun incident, it affects all of us,” she said via email.

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Roache said she has faith that Jamal’s killers will be brought to justice.

“They will be caught and they will have the book thrown at them,” she said.

Roache said she raised her kids with love, respect and open communication.

“They had beautiful smiles,” she said.