Rocco Scavetta came to Canada as a 17-year-old with big dreams and a big heart.

“He was the type of person who would give you the shirt off his back,” says his niece, Anna Scavetta-Basserman. “He tried to help everyone any chance he had. He had the biggest heart and if ever you needed someone to talk to he always gave the best advice.”

He was also a man of ambition. “He was always trying to get ahead,” says his 61-year-old cousin, Tony, who shared a room for years with Scavetta; Scavetta’s family moved in with Tony’s parents when they arrived from Southern Italy in 1970.

For 30 years, Scavetta co-owned an auto body shop in Mississauga with his brother. He sold it more than a decade ago and opened the sprawling Toronto Weston Flea Market at the corner of Old Weston Rd. and St. Clair Ave. W. Among the bustle and bartering, Scavetta was in his element.

“He loved the atmosphere at the market, the buying and selling, and the people; he was a real people person,” Tony told the Star Sunday.

On Saturday afternoon, Scavetta’s altruism brought him face to face with an armed suspect trying to rob a booth that sold jewelry.

Surveillance video cameras in the flea market captured the whole incident.

“This kid comes in with his hood on,” said Scavetta’s 41-year-old nephew Vito, who viewed the footage. “He goes to the jewelry booth counter and pulls out a sawed-off shotgun from his knapsack, aimed it at the jewelry clerk and ordered her to open the case. When she refused he started to get angry; he tried to smash open the case with the butt end of the shotgun.

“My uncle walked up behind him; he just happened to be coming down the aisle,” Vito said. “The kid turned to him, turned back to the clerk and turned back to my uncle — I guess he wasn’t sure which way to point the firearm. And when he turned back to the clerk my uncle tried to jump him from behind hoping to disarm him.

“But (the youth) got loose and backed away about 10 steps … We don’t know if my uncle thought that maybe the gun was fake, or if the kid wasn’t serious and the gun wasn’t loaded, but he advanced to try and disarm him again and that’s when he fired off the weapon.”

Paramedics pronounced Scavetta dead at the scene.

The shot sent shoppers running for their lives. The alleged shooter fled the market and was followed by a bystander, who called police and told them where he could be found.

A 16-year-old male, who can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, has been charged with second-degree murder, as well as unauthorized possession of a firearm and robbery with a firearm. Police are not searching for any other suspects.

Scavetta, who was divorced, would have turned 66 on Oct. 8.

After the shooting, yellow police tape closed the main entrance to the market. People who rented booth space from Scavetta lingered outside, shaken.

“He was an incredible man, so loving, so caring,” said Scavetta’s nephew, Domenic, who considered Scavetta a father. “He would stand in front of a bullet for anyone.”

Vito spent years working as a security guard at his uncle’s flea market before setting up a renovation company. He recalls catching shoplifters at the market, only to watch his uncle give them food and set them free if it was clear they were hungry.

Every year, Scavetta would send at least three containers filled with clothing, sporting equipment, medical supplies and other goods to charitable agencies in Tibet, Ethiopia and India, Vito added.

“He didn’t have to prove he was a hero that day,” Vito said. “He was already a hero to so many people.”

Without him, “we are left unhinged and lost,” said Scavetta-Basserman, describing her uncle as the “glue to our whole family.”

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Scavetta leaves two sons and a daughter.

His death marks the city’s 74th homicide of the year.

With files from Sandro Contenta