DRIVER OF VAN BEGGED POLICE TO SHOOT HIM DEAD.
TEN DEAD IN TORONTO AS VAN SLAMS INTO PEDESTRIANS ALONG BUSY STREET
TORONTO • The end was valiant and restrained as surely as the incident itself was sickening and deadly.
Toronto police say 10 people are dead and 15 injured after a rental van mowed through pedestrians along a busy stretch of Yonge Street on Monday afternoon, stopping for nothing: not people, not a bus shelter, not fire hydrants, not a mailbox.
The dead and injured, some sent flying, some run over, some dragged and some pinned, lay in its wake as people rushed to help the wounded. Authorities offered no motive — Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders called it a “homicide investigation” and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale suggested it wasn’t a terrorist act, saying there appears to be “no national security connection.”
When the van did stop, the driver emerged and, according to video by a passerby, begged police to shoot him dead.
At least three times the man made a sharp, jerking motion with his arm — drawing his hand from his side, and pointing it menacingly at officers with a dark object in his hand.
Instead of gunfire, an officer called: “Get down.”
The man’s answer was make the motion again. “Kill me,” he said.
“No, come on, get down,” the officer shouted.
Standing ramrod straight, dressed in dark clothing, the man continued to point whatever he was holding at the officer. “I have a gun in my pocket,” he added.
“I don’t care, get down. Get down or you’ll be shot,” the officer called back. “To the head,” he appeared to reply.
The man walked towards an officer, still pointing what he had in his hand — but the officer facing him stood his ground, walking sideways before moving closer; the man backed away briefly before tossing what he had been holding, then put both arms over his head and kneeled.
Last night Toronto police confirmed the suspect’s identity as Alek Minassian, 25, of Richmond Hill, north of Toronto. He appeared to have no prior run-ins with Toronto police, Saunders said.
Judging by a slim online footprint, Minassian may have been an aspiring software developer. Someone with that name registered an online parking app on Google Play. A LinkedIn page listed him as a student at Seneca College in Toronto, enrolled between 2011 and 2018. Minassian is also listed as a research assistant with a software development project on a Seneca website. Media relations at the college did not respond to emails and calls Monday evening.
While a manhunt for the driver was averted, the painful reality of the carnage and pain left behind revealed itself in 911 calls, social media posts and interviews with shocked and traumatized witnesses. Not long after, orange tarps and blankets covering the dead dotted the street, and shoes, bags and personal effects littered the area.
“He just started hitting everybody, man, he hit every single person on the sidewalk, anybody in his way he would hit,” one troubled witness told reporters.
“One by one, one by one. He’s going 60-70 kilometres (an hour) on the sidewalk.”
John Flengas, acting supervisor of Toronto Emergency Medical Services, described the scene as “pure carnage” on CP24.
The events started near the intersections of Yonge Street and Finch Avenue East around 1:30 p.m. After an unseasonable cold spell, Monday’s warm sunshine drew many outdoors and onto a bustling street of stores, restaurants, churches and offices.
Andy Jibb was working in his home office on the 27 th floor of a condo building near Yonge and Empress when the van went by.
“I just heard screaming and I ran out to my balcony and I saw the van, still heading south on the sidewalk. I heard something being hit,” he said.
“From my balcony I could see five or six people on the ground. There was a body at this corner, and another one,” he said, pointing towards Yonge and Empress.
“And there was like four bodies in Mel Lastman Square. Three of them are still there right now and one of them was put in an ambulance.”
“I could see the van heading down south, and it was like he had the brakes on. I could hear the tires squealing. It was like brake-torque, like he was pumping on the brakes and the gas at the same time.”
Toronto police Deputy Chief Peter Yuen said police are still working on a complex investigation and will be for some time.
“I can assure the public all our available resources have been brought in to investigate this tragic situation,” he said.
Goodale said he had consulted with federal police and security agencies and none think it was a nationalsecurity incident.
“On the basis of all available information at the present time, there appears to be no national security connection,” Goodale told a large gathering of media half a block from the crime scene. “The events that happened on the streets behind us are horrendous, but they do not appear to be connected in any way possible to national security, at least at this time.”
Saunders emphasized that all aspects are being investigated and nothing has definitively been ruled out, but the current information supports Goodale’s view.
Saunders said the incident “looks intentional” and whatever the motive, it is shocking and appalling.
“It is a different world we’re living in,” he said.
At the time of the incident, officials from the G7 group of major industrial countries were meeting in Toronto as a prelude to the G7 meeting in June in Quebec.
A government source said the news was relayed to G7 officials participating in a public safety meeting in Toronto but there was little or no impact on proceedings and there was no visible enhancement of security.
Elsewhere, however, police were on high alert.
Shifts were changed to allow overlapping officer strength and officers were being freed up for this investigation.
While authorities dampened wide speculation this was a terror attack, some witnesses were not shy about offering their impressions.
“Pretty sure I just witnessed a terror attack. People hit all over the place,” Phil Zullo posted on Instagram. Zullo was driving north on Yonge when he said he saw police chasing a vehicle.
“I must have seen about five, six people being resuscitated by bystanders and by ambulance drivers,” Zullo said.
“It was awful. Brutal. Just people everywhere. People — shoes and shirts and ball caps on the floor.”
A visibly shaken Amir Farokhpour, 28, said he was taking a break from his furniture store job when he saw the van coming toward the sidewalk on the east side of Yonge, about two blocks south of Finch.
“He on purpose hit this guy here,” he said, referring to a body of a victim that appeared to be in his 40s. A pedestrian trying to cross the street was also hit. “He flew, I would say, a good four or five metres. So he hit him pretty hard.
“Then he tried to hit some ladies right here,” he said, pointing to the sidewalk in front of his store. “But he couldn’t hit them because there was a curb here.”
“I was here for the guy but he was dead in five, six seconds. I tried helping him, but he was dead. There was not much we could do.
“It’s hard. It’s the first time I’ve seen a dead body. I couldn’t feel my legs and hands before. I still can’t feel my hands. I was just going to the convenience store. It could have been me, you know,” Farokhpour said.
It was a difficult day even for those who were all too familiar with injuries and death.
Dr. Dan Cass, executive vice president and chief medical executive at Sunnybrook hospital, addressed media at 5:10 p.m. He described how, shortly after the incident, Toronto’s lead trauma centre was put on “code orange,” a hospital alert to prepare for mass casualties.
Labs, blood banks, the intensive care unit and operating rooms prepared to receive 10 victims; two arrived without vitals and were pronounced dead.
Additional critical care nurses have since been called in. All of the victims at Sunnybrook were adults.
Dr. Cass called the tragedy “unprecedented,” but something hospital staff drill for. He praised the efforts of EMS and the Sunnybrook team, and expressed condolences for the families.
Not all of the injured have been identified, and not all the families have been notified.
“I’m not sure the last time Sunnybrook had a code orange,” said Dr. Cass.
Other victims were taken to St. Michael’s Hospital and North York General Hospital.
Pedestrians along the route tried to help the injured.
Robert Little was outside the Toronto District School Board’s headquarters for lunch when a security guard waved him over, knowing he is on the board’s Medical Emergency Response Team.
They grabbed an AED and ran out to where a woman, about 40, was lying unconscious, unrecognizable because of the blood.
Little gave her chest compressions for about five minutes, he said, and used scissors to cut off her clothing to apply the AED.
Medics showed up, took over, and later covered the woman’s body with an orange blanket.
On Twitter, Lisa Adams thanked a passerby for saving her mother.
“I would like to thank the person who saved my mother’s life today in front of Shoppers Drug Mart on Yonge Street at Madison,” Adams wrote. “She is 78 she was with her dog she is alive because of you.”
Saunders said many of the dead had not yet been identified and asked for the public’s continued help.
“We are desperately looking for two pieces now. One is to identify all of the victims, the other is there are a tremendous number of people who saw some of the events that took place along almost a kilometre strip. You may have a piece of the puzzle but it’s important not to dismiss that.
“We need every single piece of the puzzle to get a fulsome picture and account for exactly what took place here.”
I MUST HAVE SEEN ABOUT FIVE, SIX PEOPLE BEING RESUSCITATED BY BYSTANDERS AND BY AMBULANCE DRIVERS ... IT WAS AWFUL. BRUTAL. JUST PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. PEOPLE — SHOES AND SHIRTS AND BALL CAPS ON THE FLOOR. — PHIL ZULLO, WITNESS
GET DOWN, GET DOWN OR YOU’LL BE SHOT!