Devastating consequences: What is lost when young men choose gun violence
Keden Bond's younger siblings were playing soccer in front of their Stoney Creek home when his uncle arrived to pick up the 17-year-old and his older brother.
This was something their uncle did most Fridays for his two oldest nephews. On this day - Aug. 6, 2021 - they headed over to a nearby plaza on Mud Street West to grab a bite.
I love you," Keden's mother, Andrea Bond, remembers telling her son before they left. It could get chilly, grab a sweater."
So Keden ran inside and grabbed his favourite OVO hoodie and then jumped in the car.
Twenty minutes later, Andrea's phone rang and her oldest son was screaming." Keden had been shot. All three of them had been shot. It was 7:30 p.m., still daylight in the busy plaza.
Wearing only a summer dress and no shoes, Andrea raced over to 288 Mud St. W. She was panicked, listening to her older son describing what was happening on the phone. When she found them, police held her back.
You always think you have all the time in the world," Andrea says, sitting at her kitchen table, photos and memorials of her teenaged boy surrounding her.
If I had known that when they left that Keden was never coming back, I'd have held him tighter, I'd have told him a million times over how much I love him, I wouldn't even have let him go."
Keden died in his brother's arms in the parking lot, then he was resuscitated. Andrea followed the ambulance with her brother to the Hamilton General Hospital. There she was told Keden was brain dead. They gathered family around to say their goodbyes and she lost him a second time.
I was just told that I fell on the ground and I just literally just lay there screaming, crying, praying," Andrea says.
Keden was the middle of seven kids. The glue" in the family. Funny, loving, polite and hard-working. He was the first kid downstairs to open gifts at Christmas, the first one to carve a pumpkin at Halloween. He loved to play basketball; his favourite team was the Lakers.
Andrea called him Bubba, but others in the family called him YK - Young Keden - a nickname from his older brother.
In the summer of 2020, he came home one day and sheepishly told his mom that he did something and she was probably going to be mad. He got a tattoo. But when he showed her, it was her name - Andrea - on his forearm. Why wouldn't I? he asked her. You're my best friend.
Most mornings, including the day he died, he'd come downstairs and massage his mom's shoulders. You're too stressed, he'd plead with her. They'd grab Tim Hortons together. Andrea described him as a homebody." There were no signs anything had changed or was wrong, she says.
He spent most of his childhood in the lower city, where he attended Prince of Wales Elementary School. When it came time to go to high school, most of his friends went to Cathedral, but the family sought permission for him to go to out of district to Cardinal Newman Catholic Secondary School. When the family moved to Stoney Creek, he transferred to Bishop Ryan, where he completed Grade 11 and 12, graduating last June.
His grandfather was going to pay for Keden to go to trade school to become an electrician, following in his grandfather's footsteps and joining his business.
He has so much life, you know, so much opportunity, and he's so optimistic and he just was so ready to live," Andrea says. All of that was ripped away.
The entire family is traumatized, says Andrea, who has pieced together bits about what happened that day.
After leaving the house, the three went to the nearby plaza and were deciding where to eat. They parked near an Indian restaurant and her brother got out and opened his truck to show his nephews a new pair of shoes he'd just bought.
He had the shoebox in his hands when Andrea's oldest son saw two guys emerge from nearby bushes and begin firing. He and Keden ran together.
They were there side by side running together, and then he looked he (saw) Keden went down," Andrea says. He went over he grabbed him, held him in his arms until Keden took his last breaths."
Since the shooting, her eldest son is recovering well. Her brother is in physiotherapy and Andrea has faith he will walk again, but it's a long road to recovery.
In the aftermath of his death, the number of friends, teachers, principals and community members who have reached out to the Bond family has been overwhelming. Andrea's kitchen was filled with flowers, others dropped off food. At his funeral, there were more than 100 in the church - the maximum allowed - and more than 100 virtually over Zoom. She was able to walk the halls of his high school, see his locker and pick up his graduation items from school.
Since Grade 9, Keden was part of Liberty For Youth, a Hamilton-based organization that offers a variety of programs for at-risk youth, including help with school and homework, a basketball program, character development and a new equine program at a ranch to help with mental health.
It was a second home" for Keden, Andrea recalls.
Keden started going there for help with schoolwork, then he joined the basketball team; soon he was going to church with them and spending multiple-days a week there.
He would sweep the floors and help out around the building. He was there so often that Frederick Dryden, founder and executive director of Liberty For Youth, even paid him for his work.
I was so impressed with his work ethic, he was such a hard worker, so sincere," Dryden says.
He never had an attitude, was respectful and polite. He knew the names of all the staff and would go out of his way to say hello.
He'd always want to stay back and help," he says. Keden was humble and kind.
But over the pandemic, like so many programs and services, they had to shift to virtual meetings. Dryden said many of the kids they work with said they just didn't feel comfortable sharing over that format. Staff did their best to visit young people at their homes - including Keden. But with 44 guys in the basketball program alone, that's a lot of houses to visit. They've returned to limited in-person work since, but the demand for services, especially around mental health, has grown.
When news of Keden's death reached Liberty For Youth, staff were devastated.
Melanie Godin, executive assistant for the organization, said Keden made an impact. Never shy, always respectful. Former staff came from out of town to go to his funeral.
The organization wanted to support Keden's family and also find a way to honour the young man. They decided to name a bursary in his honour.
Keden's 13-year-old sister, Shydell, is the administrator. She will review candidates, present the (as of now) $500 cheque and make a speech. The Keden Bond Bursary will be awarded to youth who exemplify Keden's work ethic.
Dryden said they want to honour Keden, but also empower Shydell and build up the leadership they see in her.
Details of the bursary and a memorial to Keden are being unveiled at the Liberty For Youth annual gala Nov. 3. Due to the pandemic, the 17th annual Power of a Changed Life gala is virtual. The event is funded by Nordstrom with other community members sponsoring tickets, including Mayor Fred Eisenberger paying for the Bond family to attend.
The bursary will likely be awarded annually in August, around the time of Keden's death.
Andrea wants to know why he was killed, but suspects she's never going to get a complete answer. Moreover, there is no good answer, no good reason her family was torn apart.
More than two months after his death, Hamilton police announced they had connected Keden's shooting with a similar shooting that took place Sept. 14 around 2:45 p.m. Sabir Omer, 19, died when he and a friend were shot by a lone suspect who approached them outside a Tim Hortons at the corner of King and Caroline streets.
Police announced on Oct. 15 that they had made a series of arrests in the cases. Trayonte Eccleston, 19, has been charged with first-degree murder in both shootings. Three other teens are charged in Omer's murder, and two others face gun and drug charges stemming from what police found when they executed search warrants.
Det. Sgt. Jim Callender of the major crime unit said they all appear to have known each other in some fashion."
Andrea says she doesn't know Omer, but she does know the young man charged in her son's murder. It's devastating.
I don't wish this on anybody, a mom, dad, all the family members that are affected," she says. It's just so hard because they're young and they're throwing their whole life away by taking a life."
Nicole O'Reilly is a Hamilton-based reporter covering crime and justice for The Spectator. Reach her via email: noreilly@thespec.com