Man killed in daytime shooting in Entertainment District
Shots fired from passing car hit man inside parked vehicle
Aman has died after what appears to be a drive-by shooting in the Entertainment District Friday afternoon.
Toronto Police said that at least 10 shots were fired from a silver car at a parked car before the suspect vehicle fled the scene.
It happened just after 4 p.m. outside 80 Peter St.; the victim was a man in his twenties, according to witnesses.
He appeared to be moving after the shots rang out, James Hancock told the Star, adding that a woman who was sitting in the passenger seat escaped unharmed.
Witnesses report fire and paramedic crews performed CPR on the victim before he was rushed to a nearby trauma centre, where he died of his injuries.
James Craig, who lives nearby on Wellington St., was walking his dog when he heard what sounded like a dozen gunshots in rapid succession. He then saw a woman running south away from the scene.
“She looked like a lady coming home from work, getting the hell out of there,” he said.
Const. Victor Kwong told reporters at the scene that police weren’t clear on the exact make or model of the shooter’s vehicle.
Hancock was working nearby when he heard the shots ring out.
He said he initially thought the loud bangs were from a construction site nearby — until he heard so many in a row.
Irada Selimkhanov was on the seventh floor of an office building just across from the scene. The woman in the vehicle tumbled out shortly after the shooting and simply lay on the ground, she said.
“(A) gentleman in a red T-shirt walked up to her and started hugging her, or maybe calming her down,” she said.
Selimkhanov managed to film the aftermath of the shooting, but said that she saw lots of bystanders rush in to help the victim.
“A crowd assembled — and then they tried to open the door of the driver, couldn’t do it, had to go around from the passenger’s side, (and) couldn’t open it from there as well,” she said.
Peter St. remained closed on Friday evening between King and Adelaide Sts. as police investigated. They urged witnesses to come forward.
Bob Reid, who works for Veritas Communications nearby, said he has never heard of a daytime shooting in that area.
“It’s the entertainment district, it’s the night club district, and there have been after-hours, late-night violent incidents down here,” he said.
“But it’s never the kind of thing that we see during the course of the workday.”
Meanwhile, in an apparently unrelated incident, police said an asyet-unnamed “young male” died after a shooting near North York’s Fairview Mall on Friday night. The shooting happened about 9 p.m. on Parkway Forest Dr, just south of Sheppard Ave. E.
Paramedics rushed the victim to hospital, where he later died.
They declined to give his name or age.
The Homicide Squad has now taken over that investigation.