Late Sunday night, Delroy “George” Parkes, a York Region resident, was playing dominoes and socializing after playing football with some friends outside North Albion Collegiate Institute in Rexdale when two suspects parked a new model pickup truck, exited the vehicle, fired around 50 shots, struck five of the men and fled the scene.
Parkes, who was affectionately called Uncle George, was rushed to the hospital in fatal condition but later died. He was 61.
The other four victims, who were Parkes’ closest friends, were seriously injured but the injuries were not life-threatening.
While speaking with CP24 recently, Parkes’ second youngest child, 23-year-old Jaidyn, revealed that her mother, Heather, got a call late Sunday night from one of her father’s best friends telling her that he’d been shot. Jaiden said her mother could hear her father moan in pain in the background, saying he wasn’t going to make it.
She said that her mother initially rushed over to the North Albion Collegiate, where she heard from the police the hospital her husband had been taken to. Unfortunately, by the time Heather arrived, it was too late, Jaidyn said.
The news of Parkes’ death spread quickly to his children and relatives.
Jaidyn added: “This has completely torn apart our family.”
Parkes relocated to Canada in 1991 from Saint Ann’s Bay, Jamaica and had called Woodstock home for many years before he recently moved to Maple.
He is remembered as a generous and kind man and friend who was willing to extra mile for everyone he met, Jaidyn disclosed on a GoFundMe page she created to generate funds for her dad’s funeral and to help support their family.
She said: “(My father) was the best person ever. … He lived a simple life and was all about peace, love, and the community.
“Our phones have been ringing off the hook (since the news broke of his passing). Hundreds of people have been reaching out. He made a mark on so many.”
The “pillar of our family” who provided “not only love and support but also a sense of security and stability,” she said.
Jaidyn, 23, wrote on the GoFundMe that her dad was a “beautiful human being who loved his family deeply” and a “man of strong faith” who read his Bible daily and “dedicated his life to the Lord.”
She said that he was passionate about playing soccer and dominoes with his friends, which she said he did “every night in a peaceful and friendly gathering” for the last 30 years. He was a member of the North Kipling soccer league.
Also, Jaidyn said her father, who retired recently, was a handy person who often repaired vehicles and things around the house. He made the table on which he and his friends played dominoes and was in the process of building her a home bakery, she said.
Unfortunately, Parkes was killed days before Jaidyn graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University with a degree in social work. She is the first of his seven children to bag a post-secondary education.
Jaidyn wrote: “Our hearts are broken, and our lives have been forever changed (by this tragedy).”