Class had just let out Monday afternoon and students were filing out of Scarborough’s Woburn Collegiate Institute, among them Safiullah Khosrawi.

The Grade 10 student — shy and hard-working, but with a fun-loving streak — was on his short walk home, among a crowd of pedestrians at Ellesmere and Markham roads when, just after 3:10 p.m., gunfire rang out multiple times. Panicked students scrambled, one gunman fled the scene, and Khosrawi, just 15 years old, was left gravely injured.

Rushed to hospital, the boy died a short time later.

The shooting in broad daylight has stunned and devastated Khosrawi’s parents and three older brothers, upended his high school community, and resulted in second-degree murder charges against another 15-year-old boy who also attended Woburn Collegiate.

“It’s devastating news that nobody should ever face in their life,” said Sha Fariad, a relative who had watched Khosrawi grow up and said Khosrawi’s father was originally from Afghanistan.

Describing the boy as someone who “doesn’t fit the paradigm of today’s society,” Fariad said Khosrawi spent most of his time at home with his family — an introvert, but a youngster who could also be “a jolly kid.”

As yet another teenager felled by a bullet, Khosrawi joins the growing ranks falling victim to Toronto’s increasing gun violence. Despite recent investments in policing aimed at combatting violent crime, the city has seen record-level gun violence: last year, 292 people had been killed or injured in shootings, the highest number in at least 15 years.

Of the four people killed in the first weeks of 2020, three were shot and were 25 or younger.

Whether Khosrawi was the intended target or an innocent bystander is too early to say. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Det.-Sgt. Andy Singh said police were considering both possibilities, though he said it was “unlikely” it was a case of mistaken identity, in part because the shooting happened in broad daylight.

Police are clear, however, that Khosrawi is “completely innocent.”

“There’s nothing in his past to suggest he’d be in a situation like this,” Singh said.

The alleged shooter, who cannot be identified because of his age, was known to police. The youth — who was apprehended nearby not long after the shooting — had gang ties, though Singh added it was too early to tell if this was a factor in the shooting. He said he didn’t believe the youth and victim were friends.

Noting “many citizens” would have witnessed the shooting and its aftermath, Singh urged anyone with information, or video footage, to come forward to police or anonymously through CrimeStoppers.

Police now conducting a “painstaking” review are looking into information another person may have been involved, though Singh stressed investigators had no indication that another shooter is involved.

Among the questions police are now probing is whether the alleged gunman brought the weapon to school Monday.

“The Woburn community will come together to show our respect and support based on the family’s wishes,” wrote principal Karen Hume in a letter to parents, saying the school was mourning the tragic loss.

Khosrawi was a “conscientious and hard working student,” who Hume said would be “sorely missed by our students and staff.” Counsellors will be available to provide students and staff with support starting Wednesday.

Khosrawi’s death has prompted calls for urgent action to address the causes of rising violence in the city. Last year alone, 43 men and one woman were killed by gun violence, and scores more were injured.

At a year-end press conference last month, Toronto police chief Mark Saunders said there are now more firearms in the city, and he vowed to combat gang activity this year through greater use of force’s intelligence and guns and gangs units.

Since the beginning of 2014, 186 young people aged 13 to 29 — the age the city targets for violence prevention programs — have been killed in Toronto. That works out, on average, to about one young person killed every 12 days. Nearly a quarter of those people killed, 20 per cent, were teenagers. The numbers do not include killings believed to be domestic.

In a statement Tuesday, Mayor John Tory said the murder of a 15-year-old in Toronto “is tragic and completely unacceptable.”

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“This tragedy is deepened with news that Toronto police have charged another 15-year-old with this murder,” Tory said, adding that he remains committed to stopping gun violence by investing in community programs, policing and by advocating for tougher gun laws.

Earlier this year, following a spate of summertime shootings, Tory announced that municipal, provincial and federal governments would each pledge $1.5 million to Toronto police “to help fund immediate efforts to address the current gun violence.”

Using the money, the force initiated a 15-week guns and gangs initiative that saw increase enforcement in “high-risk areas.” But ultimately, it did not result in a reduction in gun violence.

“This is about two 15-year-olds who should never have been in this situation in the first place. We need to address the roots of youth violence,” said Coun. Josh Matlow (Ward 12 Toronto-St. Paul’s).

“We need to provide opportunities to our youth as early as possible so that we can provide them a path that any one of us would want for our own children. This didn’t need to happen.”

Matlow pushed to implement a Toronto strategy to address the roots of youth violence in 2014 and has asked council to fund additional safe spaces for youth after school in recent budgets. He said there’s much more to be done, and that all levels of government are responsible.

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“There is no reason that any of our kids should either choose to pick up a weapon or be victim of somebody with a weapon. There’s so much more that we can do.”

In July 2018, amid escalating violence that summer, council approved an anti-gun violence plan totalling more than $50 million. To date, much of that plan remains unfunded, including about $25 million in community-based initiatives designed by city staff to intervene with youth in conflict and prevent violence from happening in the first place.

After the federal government rejected most of the city’s requests for money for those programs, council has not found new funding to implement the plan.

Coun. Paul Ainslie (Ward 24 Scarborough-Guildwood), who represents the Markham and Ellesmere roads area, said he was stunned by the news.

“It’s just a senseless tragedy. It’s mind-numbing. It’s still mind numbing for me,” Ainslie told the Star.

He said school-aged kids used to more commonly solve conflicts with fistfights.

“Now they’re stabbing each other and shooting and I don’t know what the root cause of it is . . . Kids just don’t seem to have a respect for life like they should.

“I don’t think you could ever have enough youth hubs to deal with that and I honestly don’t know where the solution lies.”

A GoFund Me page to help pay for funeral expenses has been organized by family. It had raised nearly $4,000 by Tuesday evening.

Files from Jennifer Pagliaro

Jacob Lorinc is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star’s radio room in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @jacoblorinc