Ken Lee was known by those around him as a gentle person — the kind of man who stopped to check on workers at the homeless shelter where he was staying, who offered words of comfort to people who had newly fallen into the system, and who always appreciated a good cup of coffee.

His life hadn’t been easy. Lee jostled between different shelters in Toronto while trying to get back on his feet. But ultimately, his life came to an end on the city’s streets. On Tuesday morning, Toronto Police identified Lee, 59, as the victim of a fatal “swarming” attack allegedly at the hands of eight teenage girls — a development that stunned the city as 2022 drew to a close.

Hours later, under grey, chilly skies, Lee’s name was added with more than a dozen others to the Toronto Homeless Memorial, a ledger of lives lost in a city grappling with a housing crisis.

“Nobody is born into this world anticipating that they will die on the streets of Toronto,” Zach Grant, the church’s community director, told the small crowd. “It’s a great shame that we have a city that has this amount of loss on a monthly basis gone completely ignored, no system changes, no challenges, no contest to this amount of loss, of grief, of families that have now a hole.”

Lee’s death came in the early morning of Dec. 18, when he was assaulted and stabbed, allegedly by the group of GTA teenagers — all between the ages of 13 and 16. The incident took place outside of the Strathcona shelter hotel downtown, near York Street and University Avenue.

While Lee had stayed in the shelter before, he was staying elsewhere at the time of his death. Investigators believe Lee came in contact with his assailants when they tried to steal alcohol from his companion.

Bystanders who saw Lee visibly injured flagged down emergency medical workers. After discovering that he had been stabbed, Lee was rushed to hospital, where he died shortly afterwards. His identity was not released right away, as police said to their knowledge, “not all” his closest living relatives had been informed of his death.

Police sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the case, have told the Star they’re investigating at least two other potential swarming incidents that took place the same night and were caught on video. Homicide investigators have asked anyone with information that could help to come forward, and are expected to reiterate that public appeal in the coming days.

Standing beside the shelter on Tuesday, resident Jesse Guzman said he and his girlfriend were outside the hotel when the alleged attack took place. They heard screaming, he said, then saw a large group of girls running away. Guzman didn’t know Lee — who was known as “Kenney” — very well, but remembered him as a private and gentle man who “never bothered anyone.”

Another shelter resident, who the Star is not naming due to his fears about being publicly identified as homeless, said Kenney was one of his first friends after newly falling into homelessness in September 2021. He remembered Lee wryly acknowledging the shelter hotel wasn’t where any of them wanted to be, and making him feel welcome in an uncertain situation.

Lee was humble, the man said, and often talked about how he didn’t feel “street wise.”

He had a seemingly endless taste for coffee, the man said with a laugh, citing the 59-year-old Lee’s all-too-frequent trips to the nearby Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s — and not only for himself. Lee would often offer those around him a cup of their own, the man said.

While he didn’t share much of his past, he seemed keen to get back on steady ground.

Inside the shelter, staff remember Lee as someone sweet and quiet, said David Reycraft, head of housing services for operating agency Dixon Hall. It wasn’t unusual for him to check on their team. In the weeks since his death, Toronto outreach worker Doug Johnson Hatlem says other shelter residents and contacts in the homeless service sphere have offered up small glimpses into Lee’s life — from his apparent family roots in Hong Kong to his “consistently kind character.”

Lee’s final months had involved some turmoil, as he left the downtown Strathcona hotel shelter for a different Toronto shelter facility, Johnson Hatlem said. “It’s like many people who are homeless. I think he was trying to get back on his feet, but it was very precarious housing. He was in and out of the shelter system recently, may have been staying with friends or family.”

“But he hasn’t had permanent housing for quite some time.”

As people began to gather for the memorial Tuesday afternoon, the heavy toll of homelessness in Toronto was laid bare — with a long line of people trailing out the doors of the downtown Church of the Holy Trinity, where the ceremony takes place and warm meals are offered to those in need. Behind the chairs arranged outside, the church team offered coats and other clothing.

Fifteen names were read out during the monthly observance, including two people known to the community that weren’t homeless themselves, and one historic death. Five of the deaths added to the years-long list were people known to have died recently, but without anyone to identify them.

Speaking about Lee’s death in particular, Johnson Hatlem said it painted a grim picture of Toronto — as someone struggling with homelessness was treated “like their life doesn’t matter.”

It is extraordinarily rare in Toronto for such young girls to be accused of armed violence like this, let alone accused of taking a life. All eight have been charged with second-degree murder.

Records kept by the Star indicate the youngest of the accused — the three 13-year-olds in the group of eight — are the youngest girls to be charged with murder in Toronto for more than a century. Since 1900, the newspaper’s archives have records of only four other 13-year-olds in the city who were charged with murder, and all were young boys. The youngest girl to face a murder charge was a 14-year-old in 1979, who was charged with killing Israel Ehrlich during a robbery.

Toronto Police’s current records management system only goes back to 2013, but the service confirmed they had no records in that time of girls aged 13 or younger facing murder charges. Anecdotally, investigators on the homicide squad couldn’t recall any pre-2013 incidents, either.

Three of the girls in the group had prior contact with police — not necessarily a criminal record — the police service has said, while the other five did not have prior contact. The girls are believed by investigators to have met in person after coming into contact through social media.

Several of the accused, whose identities cannot be released under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, will face bail hearings in the coming weeks — one on Jan. 20, two others on Jan. 25, and another on Jan. 27. One girl has already been released on bail with two sureties.

Meanwhile, those who knew Lee are left to grapple with the way his life came to an end.

“It’s not something you can get over,” the man staying at the Strathcona told the Star, standing in Tuesday’s chilly air. It wasn’t the first tragedy he’d weathered, and he knew what came next.

“It’s just something you have to live with.”

Toronto police identify victim in alleged ‘swarming’ attack | The Star