The man who's being forced to testify at the Jane Creba shooting trial says he didn't see the teenage girl get shot on Boxing Day on a crowded Toronto street.

Richard Steele, who police say was the intended target of the shooting, spoke to CBC News Friday, hours after he was let out of a Toronto prison.

He was released after serving four months of a 21-month sentence for drug and weapons convictions unrelated to 15-year-old Creba's death in 2005.

"I was in no position to see whether or not she got hit and I don't want to be," Steele, 20, told CBC reporter Michael Wise in an interview. "In my neighbourhood, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil."

In April, a judge ordered Steele to testify against Creba's accused killers during preliminary hearings that began in May and are expected to last several months.

Ten people have been charged with either second-degree murder or manslaughter in connection with Creba's death.

Creba was an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire of a gunfight that erupted in the middle of a Boxing Day shopping crowd on Yonge Street, near the Eaton Centre. Six other people were wounded.

Police say Steele was standing beside Creba when she was shot.

Investigators have speculated that Steele was the intended target of the shooting. They say he was confronted by a group of men who robbed him of two cellphones and hundreds of dollars, and then threatened to shoot him.

Steele says race played role in coverage

Steele said he has learned from the incident and won't be hanging out with the same group of friends any longer.

"For me to have not learned anything from this situation, I'd be a fool," he said.

He also said the incident illustrates how race plays a role in how much attention is paid to a crime. If Creba was black instead of white, her death would not have caused such a stir, he said.

"The simple fact that she's white means she's dealt more cards in terms of publicity," he said.