Dartmouth shooting victim identified; autopsy confirms homicide

A family is remembering a man who was killed in a Dartmouth, N.S., shooting on Thursday.

Few details have been released by Halifax Regional Police about the fatal daytime shooting in the area of Highfield Park Drive and True North Crescent in Dartmouth, N.S., around noon Thursday.

A man in his 50s was found suffering from gunshot wounds in a vehicle. Despite police performing CPR, the victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

On Saturday, police said the Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service conducted an autopsy and confirmed the manner of death to be homicide.

Police say they do not believe this to be a random incident, and said officers are continuing to investigate.

“They are conducting interviews and checking for witnesses for information,” says Const. Paul Desrochers.

Family members and friends have identified the man as Tyson Cain.

“I didn’t believe it. I left work frantically, calling his phone, I must have called him about 20 times, and he never answered the phone. When I got there, I saw a lot of people that didn’t live in the community that had heard prior, too. That was when I found out and it was devastating. It’s unbelievable, it’s still very hard to believe,” Cyndi Cain-Holmes, aunt of Tyson.

“The fact that how senseless gun violence is and that I wanted to vomit because I couldn’t believe what I heard, I couldn’t believe it was true, but because my brother called me and told me I knew it was true, but I just couldn’t believe it,”

Cain-Holmes said they were like siblings, growing up together and even living together earlier in life. She said Cain had bought a piece of land in Lawrencetown, N.S., and planned to build a summer camp for kids.

“It’s definitely like a bad dream because if doesn’t make sense. My brother is 52 years old, and it doesn’t make sense at this stage in the game where life is really starting to look up for him,” says Cain-Holmes. “He was innovative, he was a gamechanger, he was someone who loved his community, loved his family and loved his children.”

Cain-Holmes said Cain owned a restaurant and was a “fabulous chef.”

“He was a good man. People like to assume it must be because of this or because of that or street violence but that’s not the lifestyle that he was into nowadays,” says Giselle Cunningham, a family friend. “We were just like brother and sister, you know. Sometimes we fought and sometimes we didn’t always agree on things, but he was like a brother to me.”

His family will remember him as a father who doted on his family and children as well as someone who loved to cook and was into the music scene.

“He was changing lives in our community, he was helping young men, he was always pouring into people and helping. You know, it doesn’t make sense that my brother is dead, it just doesn’t make sense,” explains Cain-Holmes.

Police say they don’t believe the public is at risk from the shooting and are asking anyone who has information or video related to the incident to come forward.

“Police were only on scene well after the fact so we’re really hoping that the general public will come forward and assist us with that sort of thing. Any suspects, any vehicles that may have been involved, anything that would point us in the direction for this investigation,” says Const. Desrochers.

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