Quiet yet kind-hearted, Mackai Bishop Jackson was known for a winning smile and a ready laugh — the sort of person who just drew you in with the warmth of his soul.

He loved sports, none more so than basketball, and most days after school that’s where you’d find “MJ,” as everyone knew him, rounding up friends to play for the sheer joy of the game on the courts of Regent Park.

Until Tuesday afternoon, when Jackson — still aglow from birthday celebrations two days earlier — was cut down by a bullet under circumstances that remain unclear.

He was just a kid. Barely 15.

And though the Toronto Police Service now has marked him down as the city’s 81st homicide of 2018, Jackson’s death falls under that rarest and most tragic of subcategories — the murder of children.

Going back a decade, fewer than 20 children under 16 have been murdered in Toronto. But since this time last year, Jackson’s killing is the fourth of its kind. Though it is still uncommon, the numbers suggest children in the last year were twice as likely to become victims of homicide.

Outside the murder scene — an apartment on the eighth floor of the Toronto Community Housing building at 230 Sackville St. — deep sorrow and palpable anger were on display Wednesday in equal measure, as the community grappled with its loss.

Some pointed angrily at the recent closure of the nearby Regent Park Community Centre — the venue’s programs, many intended for at-risk children like Jackson, were suspended weeks ago when the facility was pressed into service as an emergency shelter to accommodate people displaced by the Aug. 21 highrise fire at 650 Parliament St., in the nearby St. James Town neighbourhood.

Were it not for the closure, Stephanie Beattie of the Regent Park Neighbourhood Association said, Jackson might have been playing basketball at the centre at the time he was killed.

“Every child in the community gets traumatized every time something like this happens,” she said, adding she feels like her community has been forgotten. “If this was in another middle-class community, there would be councillors deployed, there would be concern for these kids.”

Programs at the centre, including a youth basketball league, were also cancelled last winter so the city could use the facility as an emergency refuge for the homeless amid icy weather and a bed-space crisis.

In an initial response to the Star, the city detailed its reasons for suspending programs as it pressed the facility into emergency shelter service, emphasizing that some programs were transferred to other nearby sites.

But later Wednesday, in the wake of sustained criticism over the closure, the city abruptly announced it would reopen the Regent Park Community Centre, effective Oct. 1. The displaced residents taking shelter at the venue “are being moved to alternate accommodations” provided by the owner of 650 Parliament St., the city said in a statement. No mention was made of Jackson’s death.

Toronto police were saying little about the sequence of events that ended in the death, other than to confirm the shooting “inside the apartment building” at 230 Sackville. They are continuing their investigation as it is still unclear whether or not an altercation occurred before Jackson was shot.

One neighbour who asked not to be identified told the Star that a fight broke out on the street prior to the shooting. “One of the kids ran into the building and went up to the eighth floor. At least one of the others chased behind him and shot him just as he reached the apartment.”

On Wednesday, Sabila Mohamed, a mother and resident of 230 Sackville St., filled in some of the gaps, telling the Star that the shooting took place inside her apartment, where her son, Jackson’s best friend, was at home sick.

“I don’t know what happened inside the house. I just got a call, my daughter calling me, ‘Mom, come home. Something happened.’

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“I couldn’t even go inside the house. I was beside myself. Then I hear somebody died. A young boy who I know. In my house. In my living room.”

Mohamed said her son is still in shock and has been devastated by what he witnessed. She said there is now a huge need for grief counselling for children in the community.

“We are tired of going to funerals for our kids. Our kids are dying and nobody is doing anything about it.”

As school let out Wednesday, a surge of friends gathered at the makeshift memorial outside the building to pay their respects. Some wept openly, others added to the cluster of flowers and candles on the sidewalk.

A woman who lived in the building with him, but preferred to remain anonymous, described Jackson as a sweet boy who liked to play sports and always helped his mother. “He was a kind kid. He was the kid who always held the door open for you,“ she said.

“I lived there when he was born,” she said. “I watched him grow up.”

She recalled his mother as an “amazing, hard-working woman who did her best” for Jackson and his two older brothers.

“There’s only so much you can do when you have teenagers, but she’s a great mother who loves her kids very much,” she said.

Before his death, she said Jackson was brimming with potential, but had “rude” friends. She said she’d spoken to him about extracurricular programs at the YMCA, that she hoped would help him make better friends.

“To the people who loved and knew him, he will be remembered as a good kid who had a lot of potential,” she said. “I hope his brothers honour his memory by becoming who he could have become.”

City Councillor Lucy Troisi, who grew up in Regent Park, was spotted nearby, plastering “No Guns” signs on street poles. She said she hadn’t yet reached out to Jackson’s family, preferring instead to give them space, but Troisi said she nevertheless wanted the family to know the entire community is grieving with them.

“As a mother, I just want to say that I can’t even imagine what this family is going through. My heart is broken every time I hear of gun violence in the city,” she said.