Toronto police charge 2 in Lecent Ross shooting death

Two people have been charged in connection with the shooting death of 14-year-old Lecent Ross.

The teenage girl was shot to death with an illegal handgun inside a home on Jamestown Crescent in Rexdale on July 9.

Toronto police are set to release more information about the two suspects and the charges they face at a Friday news conference.

AliciaJasquith, Ross's mother, said she's aware of the arrests, but police didn't tell her who is charged or with what.

"It's far from closure," she told CBC News.

Jasquithsaid she plans to be in court when the accused appear.

Rudolph Bennett, a neighbour who watched Ross grow up, said he was at home the day the teen was shot. Today, he said he hopes the charges will help the family heal.

"They can't bring her back," Bennett said.

"But I think they will feel a little ease in their heart."

Relatives of Ross who live in the neighbourhood where she died declined to comment.

In the wake of the shooting, police said they were treating the death as suspicious but also probing the possibility that the shooting may have been accidental.

Both the police and Ross's family appealed to the public for information about how the gun, a .40-calibre short-barreled Smith & Wesson, came to be in the house.