Guests at baby shower hit by gunfire
T ORON T O • One day after a man was shot dead while sitting in a car during broad daylight in Toronto’s hectic downtown, the city was shaken by something even more troubling: four guests at a baby shower shot when they stepped out of the party for a short time.
The pregnant woman who was the guest of honour at the shower fell during the melee and was taken to hospital as a precaution.
Police said the four victims were standing outside the apartment on Eglinton Avenue West, near Keele Street in northwest Toronto, when the gunfire started.
Each of the four men sustained gunshot wounds in the mid to lower body and were listed in non- life- threatening condition.
One of them was taken to hospital in an ambulance, while the three others “made their own way,” said Const. Craig Brister, a police spokesman.
Around 6: 30 p. m., a resident at the apartment building was on her way out to dinner and saw guests streaming into the main floor party room with gifts for the shower. But by 8 p.m., her panicked neighbours were calling her at the restaurant, saying there’d been a shooting outside the building.
When she got home, the resident — who would only
The four males involved, they were outside, the party was inside
give her name as Franca — saw dozens of bullet casings scattered outside and counted three or four bullet holes in the party room windows, which face the street.
“I’ ve lived here for over 23 years and I’ve never seen something like this in my life,” she said.
Another r esident, who would not give her name, said she was in her seventh- floor apartment when she heard at least four gunshots outside.
“We said, ‘ Oh, that’s a gun,’” the woman said.
“My daughter went to the window. I said, ‘ No, no, don’t go there.’ But she went and she said, ‘ There’s many people running away.’”
Neighbours told the Canadian Press that several children were in the vicinity at the time.
Police said they were looking for two black males wearing dark clothing who fled the scene on foot. But they say the baby shower itself wasn’t targeted.
“The four males involved, they were outside, the party was inside,” Brister told The Toronto Sun. “Whether they were targeted, I don’t know yet.”
Toronto has seen a rash of gunfire incidents that began Friday afternoon when a 28- year old man, who police say was known to them, was shot and killed in the downtown entertainment district while sitting in a parked car.
Police are trying to determine whether any of the shootings are linked.