A Toronto principal says her high school is “shaken to the core” over the death of a 15-year-old student who was gunned down in an apartment building last week.

Sheryl Freeman, the principal of Central Technical School, described Tyson Bailey as a student who showed leadership in the classroom and on the football field, where he was a running back for the school’s junior football team.

Bailey died after he was shot inside an apartment building on Whiteside Place, near Dundas and River streets, on Friday afternoon.

At a news conference Monday morning, Norm Davis, Bailey’s football coach at Central Tech, choked up as he talked about the teen’s work ethic and leadership.

When Bailey joined the team, he was a typical teen who didn’t quite follow instructions right off the bat, but he began to mature, Davis told reporters.

Davis said Bailey, whose older sister graduated from Central Tech in 2008, was a model student-athlete who was confident that he could be successful if he worked hard.

As a tribute, Bailey’s football teammates are signing his No. 7 jersey, and it will be given to his mom, Davis said.

Another Central Tech football coach, Steven Vitorino, said Bailey was so talented that he could have gone on to play at the collegiate level, possibly on a scholarship.

Freeman, Davis and Vitorino decided to hold a news conference as a way to inform people about Bailey’s leadership, commitment and his stolen potential, and to offer their condolences to the boy’s family.

They said staff and students were shaken by his death. Grief counsellors were on hand at the school Monday.

No one has been charged in Bailey’s death.

Police believe he may have been targeted by someone who was “lying in wait” for him in the stairwell where he was killed.

On Sunday, police searched a 13th-floor apartment suite that Bailey visited shortly before he was killed. There, police seized a number of cellphones, including one belonging to Bailey, police told CP24 reporter Katie Simpson.

According to police, Bailey was in the building with a person who’s associated with the apartment that was searched.

Bailey had no known gang affiliations, police said.

Anyone with information about the homicide is asked to call police or Crime Stoppers anonymously.

With files from CP24 reporter Katie Simpson and CTV Toronto reporter Tamara Cherry

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