Horror on Yonge
At least 10 killed, 15 injured as driver mows down pedestrians in North York Suspect held, residents in shock after what police chief calls a ‘deliberate’ incident
This story was written by Mitch Potter, with reporting by Theresa Boyle, Bruce Campion-Smith, Victoria Gibson, Julien Gignac, Wendy Gillis, Tamar Harris, Michele Henry, Patrick Ho, Jaren Kerr, Emily Mathieu, Tonda MacCharles, Jesse McLean, Jenna Moon, David Rider, Alanna Rizza, Fatima Syed, Moira Welsh, StarMetro’s Gilbert Ngabo and May Warren and Metroland’s Aaron D’Andrea and Andrew Palamarchuk If ever there was a moment for an overdose of quintessential Canadian resilience, it is now, as our metropolis struggles to make sense of the incomprehensible: a deliberate massacre on Toronto’s most famous street.
A curb-jumping Ryder van turned the first truly gorgeous spring day into a nightmare unlike anything Toronto has ever known on Monday, cutting a highspeed swath through pedestrians along Yonge St., ending at least 10 lives and wounding at least 15 other people.
The carnage in North York stretched more than a kilometre along Yonge south of Finch Ave., lasting a mere 26 minutes, from the first alarm to the arrest of the suspect.
Even as first responders rushed to the scene of the early afternoon attack, a wave of shock, fear and fury cascaded onto social media. Within minutes the world’s news channels jumped in with live feeds, one after another, placing Toronto in the Klieg lights of grim global breaking news.
Toronto reeled. And anguished. And wondered why.
By nightfall, online rumour, confusion and baseless conjecture gave way to little besides this one firm fact: a single suspect, Alek Minassian, 25, of Richmond Hill, was in custody, police confirmed.
The suspect appeared to be pleading for his own death during a dramatic police takedown captured on video mere minutes after the attack. The suspect was heard to shout,“Shoot me in the head.”
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Minassian’s name did not trigger any red flags relating to terrorism.
Earlier Monday, Goodale described the incident as a “horrific attack” in a tweet offering praise to the Toronto police and condolences to the victims and their families. By nightfall, Goodale tempered his language.
“This incident that happened here on the street behind us was horrendous but it does not appear to be connected in any way to national security,” Goodale told reporters.
Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders on Monday night said the rampage “definitely looked deliberate.” Saunders also said. “There is nothing in our files, we’ve looked right across, and there’s nothing that we have on him right now.”
North of the city late Monday night, two York Regional Police vehicles sealed off access to brick home on Elmsley Dr. in Richmond Hill thought to be connected to Minassian. Neighbours congregated outside the police tape, taking pictures and expressing shock at what had happened.
“It’s horrible,” said Wes Mack, one of the neighbours. “I mean, 10 people are dead who are out just doing their normal thing, walking down the street.
“We’ve lost our virginity. This is our first great tragedy of this kind in the Toronto area. Toronto will never be the same.”
With so many questions swirling, the anguish of the moment put the city’s emergency services to the test.
As police secured the scene, chaos slowly gave way to confusion and then, finally, grim order. As subway service was halted on the northern stations of the Yonge line, witnesses described scenes reminiscent of a battlefield. Henry Yang was driving southbound on Yonge when he heard an explosive sound and saw a white van careering down the sidewalk, smashing into a newspaper box, and then a fire hydrant. It was 1:10.
“I thought, this is insane. This is not normal,” Yang said.
He followed the van, staying on the road, driving 50 km/h or more, trying to keep up with vehicle he figured was going about 70 km/h. That’s when he saw a person fly into the air, on impact.
“He was driving southbound and most of the pedestrians were walking southbound, so they didn’t see him coming,” Yang said in an interview.
“I started honking my horn, making noises, trying to make a commotion, trying to make people aware that something was going on. I rolled down my windows and started yelling at people, I wanted them to get out of the way.”
Yang said he and his wife watched, horrified, as at least 10 people were hit. They called police from the car.
“The guy was zigging and zag- ging,” Yang said, “People started flying into the air.” Yang went on to describe bodies dismembered by the impact as he and his wife pulled over to assist victims lying on the ground near Mel Lastman Square.
A man “had his brain opened up,” and was sitting, silent. He was “just desperately looking at her and cuddling the body of the woman” who was crushed, Yang said. Yang doesn’t know if they were together, or encountered each other in this moment, on Yonge St.
“I don’t know what the driver’s intentions were but I know it was deliberate,” said Yang. “It’s so hard to see something like this happen right in front of your eyes.”
At least some of the city’s youngest residents were spared such imagery. In the schoolyard of McKee Public School, barely a block from the carnage, a game of baseball continued. Mayor John Tory and Deputy Chief Peter Yuen gathered reporters at Earl Haig Secondary School for an initial press briefing, but took no questions about the incident.
“I want to assure people that the city is in safe hands at the moment,” Tory said. “These are not the kinds of things we expect to happen in this city. We hope they don’t happen anywhere in the world, but we especially don’t expect them to happen in Toronto. But things are as they are.”
Friends and family of the dead and injured met at Sunnybrook health centre on Monday evening, hoping for answers. The hospital was where most of the injured were taken.
Hospital staff escorted tearyeyed friends and family to a basement auditorium where they were briefed on how their loved ones were doing.
In a nearby hallway, others pushed for answers as to the status of their loved ones.
“We’re just looking for answers, that’s all,” said a man whose wife was injured in the attack. He seemed frustrated, and wanted to know if his wife was in surgery.
“I can’t fathom how you’re feeling right now, but that’s where you’re going to get the answers,” said a staff member, directing him back to the auditorium.
An internal staff email obtained by the Star showed Sunnybrook surgeon-in-chief Avery Nathens heaping praise upon hospital staff for showing “grace under pressure” as they responded to the casualty onslaught. “I am very proud to be a member of this team,” he wrote. “Thank you for all you do every day and for what you accomplished today.”
Canada’s experts in international terrorism spent much of the day on standby, awaiting confirmation one way or the other on the nature of an attack that bore more than a few of the hallmarks so brutally familiar.
“Yonge St. is our Champs-Élysées — and in terms of target selection, Mel Lastman Square makes a certain kind of sense,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, and co-director of a study of Western foreign fighters, based at the University of Waterloo. “There will always be crowds there and you can get a van up to speed there more easily than you could downtown.
“But the fact remains we don’t know the story behind this guy as yet. That isn’t stopping many on social media, who now routinely jump to conclusions one way or another in order to use the attack to score political points.”
In a statement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanked “the first responders at the scene who managed this extremely difficult situation with courage and professionalism.
“We should all feel safe walking in our cities and communities. We are monitoring this situation closely, and will continue working with our law enforcement partners around the country to ensure the safety and security of all Canadians.”