‘HE JUST STARTED HITTING EVERYBODY’
Witnesses describe carnage after deadly Toronto van attack
— 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 Yonge Street Monday afternoon, stopping for nothing: not people, not a bus shelter, not fire hydrants, not a mailbox.
The dead and injured, some knocked over, some run over, some dragged and some pinned, lay in its wake as others rushed to help the wounded. At press time, police had offered no clue to a motive.
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 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 to do the motion again. “Kill me,” he said.
“No, come on, get down,” an officer shouted.
Standing ramrod straight, the man continued to point the object at the officer. “I have a gun in my pocket.”
“I don’t care, get down. Get down or you’ll be shot,” the officer called back.
The man then walked toward the officer, still pointing the object — but the officer stood his ground, then moved closer; the man backed away, then tossed what he had been holding and, kneeling, put both arms over his head.
Toronto police confirmed the driver is a 25-year-old Canadian citizen named Alek Minassian.
The reality of the carnage and pain left behind revealed itself in 911 calls, social media posts and interviews with traumatized witnesses.
“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.”
The events took place near the intersections of Yonge Street and Finch Avenue early on a warm afternoon that drew many outdoors.
Andy Jibb was working on the 27th floor of a nearby building 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. “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 working on the complex investigation.
“I can assure the public all our available resources have been brought in to investigate this tragic situation,” he told a news conference.
While police and Toronto Mayor John Tory said it was too early to speculate on cause or motive, 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 job when he saw the van coming toward the sidewalk on Yonge.
“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 acurbhere.
“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 are familiar with injuries and death. Dr. Dan Cass, executive vice president and chief medical executive at Sunnybrook Hospital, described how 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 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.