Toronto police investigating another drive-by shooting

An unarmed woman was killed in a drive-by shooting in north Toronto early Sunday morning while on her way home from a funeral, police said.

Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders told a news conference that the incident — the fourth homicide in the city in 24 hours and 47th so far this year — is indicative of a “street gang subculture” that has become an ongoing issue for officers.

Video footage released by police shows a silver SUV circling a neighbourhood before passing a vehicle and slowing down. According to investigators, a passenger in the SUV fired a single shot.

Jenas Nyarko, a 31-year-old woman sitting in the back seat of the second vehicle, was struck and killed.

Investigators said the vehicle drove away, firing several other shots on its way. They did not release any suspect information.

“To have an individual shoot at a vehicle that is practically full of occupants and then to drive away nonchalantly is a huge indication that the person that we’re looking for,” Saunders said. “They need to know that we’re going to do whatever we can to apprehend them and do whatever we can to apprehend them.”

Det. David Dickinson of the force’s homicide squad said there’s nothing in Nyarko’s past to suggest she would have been targeted by the shooter, nor is there anything to suggest the three other people in the vehicle with her might have been targets.

Originally from Ghana, Nyarko moved to Canada in 2001 and worked at a shelter, Dickinson said.

“She was with three other friends. They were just returning from a funeral ... when she was shot,” he said. “It would appear that this is a case of individuals coming from one neighbourhood of the city to another neighbourhood and shooting the first residents that they see.”

Investigators said there’s nothing at this point to suggest this homicide and three others over the weekend — two people shot to death in the city’s west end early Sunday, and a man killed in northern Toronto a day earlier — were connected.