A 17-year-old boy is wanted for murder and attempted murder after an innocent bystander was slain and another person was injured during a shooting Friday in downtown Hamilton.
Hamilton Police responded to a “brazen daylight shooting” at about 5:25 p.m. near the Jackson Square shopping mall at the corner of King St. E. and James St. N., where a male suspect allegedly encountered three people who appear to have been the intended targets.
Police said the male opened fire and struck one of the intended individuals, while also striking an innocent bystander — Belinda Sarkodie, 26 — who was “simply going about her day” before being slain.
Belinda Sarkodie, 26, who immigrated to Canada from Ghana last year, was at a bus stop heading home after work when she was killed by a stray bullet on Friday, July 11, 2025.
Despite life-saving efforts from officers, police said Sarkodie was pronounced dead at the scene. The other victim, a male, was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
Police said Mackale Lavoie, 17, is wanted for second-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. Cops said they obtained an order permitting the publication of Lavoie’s identity, who remains at large and whose identity would usually be protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Police warned the public not to approach Lavoie and to contact police immediately by calling 911 or 905-546-4925.
Police previously said that Sarkodie immigrated to Canada from Ghana last year and was living and working in Hamilton. Her brother lives in Manitoba and police have notified her family in Ghana.
A video shared to Facebook shows a distraught woman wailing near the crime scene in Hamilton.
“Belinda was just 26 years old,” a Ghanaian woman who witnessed the incident told Ghana Web. “She came to Canada for school. Today is my off-day. I was going to shop and she was also going to shop when she met her untimely death.”
It was the second time in less than three months that an innocent young woman was fatally struck by a stray bullet while waiting at a Hamilton bus stop.
Harsimrat Randhawa, a 21-year-old woman from India who was studying at Mohawk College, was shot dead April 17 on Hamilton Mountain while waiting for a bus at Upper James St. and South Bend Rd.
Source: yahoo.com
