Mother searches for details on son's shooting

The mother of a boy fatally shot in a Toronto school is searching for details on how her son died, as mourners gathered Thursday night for a candlelight vigil.

"We don't know anything, the police haven't told us anything," Lorraine Small told CTV News.

"I haven't even seen my son's body. I haven't seen my son's body."

Jordan Manners, a Grade 9 student at C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute, was killed Wednesday afternoon. Police have made no arrests and have released few details about the investigation.

The boy's best friend, Shane Walters, said he found his friend in the hallway and knelt by his side as he lay dying.

"I was trying to talk to him," he said. "I said, 'Jordan, don't die, you stay awake. Don't worry, help is coming.'"

Friends and family comforted Small on Thursday as she remembered her 15-year-old boy.

"Jordan was everything that I lived for. I love all of my kids, but Jordan had something," she said. "I'm very angry."

Classes at C.W. Jefferys were cancelled on Thursday, but 14 grief counsellors were on-hand at the northern Toronto school to help students and staff.

About one-quarter of the student body sought their help. Many are shocked and feel their school is no longer safe.

"I don't really know what to expect anymore......our school is supposed to be safe," said one student. "And now this happened so easily without any notice."

David Johnston with the Toronto District School Board said that insecure feeling may not go away.

"Initially there is the shock, the disbelief, the I-cant-believe-it-happened-it-can't-be-true. After that normally comes the emotions, the feelings of sadness in mourning the loss of a friend," Johnston explained.

"This is something that I don't think any student at this school will ever forget,"

Many who knew Manners described him as someone who dreamed of becoming an actor.

He had made contact with the Canadian film industry, and was one of three young men slated to be featured in a documentary by Toronto filmmakers Mark Simms and Paul Nguyen. Manners was eventually cut from the film called "Lost in the Struggle," about young men growing up in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood.

Groups have sprung up on social networking sites such as Facebook.com to remember Manners and offer his family condolences.

"It's sad to see someone so young go so soon," wrote Ravuth Kim on the group 'In Loving Memory of Jordan Manners RIP.'

"The last time I saw him, he was shooting fireworks on Sunday in front of my house. My deepest sympathies go out to the Manners family."

Kim's message was just one of a long list of similar sympathetic greetings.

As students cope with their grief, police work to find the killer. The homicide, guns and gangs and the intelligent squads are all under pressure to get this crime solved quickly.

Mark Mendelson, a former Toronto homicide detective, told CTV News the killer probably wasn't a stranger to the halls of C.W. Jefferys.

"A professional gangbanger would never walk into a school to do that kind of murder, that's just too dangerous," Mendelson explained.

"Schools are pretty stringent now as to who walks in and who walks out of there. Would I be surprised if it was another student in the school? Not for a minute."

With a report from CTV's Lisa LaFlamme in Toronto