Leslie Sparks never imagined she would be in this position.
More than a year after her son, Tyrell Beals, was killed in the community of North Preston, outside Halifax, she is still searching for answers.
“My son’s gone; I have no answers. He leaves behind a beautiful family, friends, loved ones, his beautiful kids, who were crying all the time (asking), ‘Nanny, when’s Daddy waking up?’” she said.
“And I’ve been waiting. It’s been a year now, and I’ve never gotten that RCMP visit.”
The 36-year-old died after an altercation on the night of May 8, 2024 on Downey Road.
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At the time, officers said they found Beals, who lived in the nearby community of Westphal, suffering from gunshot wounds.
After performing first aid, they say they rushed him to Dartmouth General Hospital.
But Sparks says that when she arrived at the hospital to find her son unconscious, she didn’t see any evidence he had been shot.
“The police just telling me, ‘Oh, he got shot here, he got shot here.’ I saw no bullet-holes on my son. So what am I, a blind mother?” she said.
“I want to see accountability. Like if there were mistakes made on the scene. I’m a mother, I need to know these things.”
Beals died shortly after, and Sparks says he was rushed out of the hospital room before family could say goodbye.
“We need to be treated equal. We were kicked out of the hospital. Why, why?”
Sparks says her son was a brave, kind and generous soul who cared deeply about others. But now his spirit will have to live on in memory.
“You know he wrote his own songs and rapped them out, and I listen to them and they break me down,” Sparks said.
‘They break me down but they’re amazing. (He was) a father, a rapper, a pillar to our family. I had a beautiful son.”
For more on this story, watch the video above.
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