The day Yonge St. became a war zone
Monday changed Toronto forever. Here’s how it unfolded, moment by moment
The most violent dayin Toronto’s recent history started on a decidedly cheerful note.
“Hello sunshine!” Breakfast Television host Kevin Frankish sang as he introduced the morning’s weather segment.
Sunny and 15 C, Monday felt like the first day of spring to Henry Yang, who, like many Torontonians, was relishing the sun after such a long, dreary winter.
“Such a beautiful day,” Yang said to his wife, Michelle, after delivering green onions and tomatoes to Artisan Noodle, his Yonge St. restaurant, after 1 p.m.
The restaurant was busier than it had been in months, while the sidewalks were alive with office workers on their lunch breaks and people running errands.
So Yang was feeling good as he got back in his car and headed toward Hwy. 401. That’s when he heard a crash of crunching metal. He thought it was his muffler. Then he saw the van. A few minutes later Yonge St. looked like a war zone — a two-kilometre crime scene of scattered bodies, bloodied sidewalks and people screaming for help. When the rampage was over and the alleged driver under arrest, the anguish for victims and their families was just beginning. So was the city’s response to the shocking, seven-minute killing spree, as chaos and carnage gave way to quick-thinking competence, grace under pressure and kindness. Monday was an irredeemable nightmare for Toronto, but from the remarkable poise of Const. Ken Lam, to the speedy preparations by hospital staff at Sunnybrook, to the courageous instincts of average citizens, it was also a day for which the city should be proud.
This is how it happened.
Before
At some point on Monday morning, Alek Minassian, a socially awkward 25-year-old with no criminal record, picked up a rented white Chevrolet cargo van registered to a Ryder location in Concord, about a 15-minute drive west of Minassian’s parents’ home in Richmond Hill.
Meanwhile, Yonge St. was bustling with shoppers and office workers. Dorothy Sewell, an 80-year-old greatgrandmother, was walking to the bank. Renuka Amarasinghe, a 48-year-old single mother, was likely on her way to pick up her son after finishing work at the Toronto District School Board. Thirtyyear-old Anne Marie D’Amico, who worked at Invesco, across the street from Empress Walk, was probably on her lunch break, while 94-year-old Betty Forsyth was out for her daily walk. Munir Najjar was visiting Toronto from Jordan to see his son, while Eddie Kang, 45, was just out enjoying the sun.
There was no warning for what would happen next.
The rampage Police received their first 911 call at 1:27 p.m. A pedestrian had been struck in the Yonge and Finch area.
At the same time, a cryptic message was posted to Minassian’s since-deleted Facebook account. “Private (Recruit) Minassian Infantry 00010, wishing to speak to Sgt 4chan please. C23249161,” reads the post time-stamped 1:27 p.m., according to an archive of Minassian’s account. “The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”
Driving south on Yonge, Minassian is alleged to have jumped the sidewalk at the southwest corner of Finch, where the first victim was hit and killed. “He was aiming,” said Ali Shaker. The van continued on the west-side sidewalk, crashing into mailboxes, fire hydrants and anyone who could not get out of the way. Yang, who was about to make a Uturn into the southbound lanes, heard the crashes, saw the van and quickly determined the driver was intentionally trying to hit people.
So he decided to chase him. “I thought, ‘I have to catch him and get his licence plate.’”
With the van driving on the sidewalk, Yang tried to keep up with it on the road, honking continuously to try to alert pedestrians who had their backs to the van.
The van was estimated to be travelling between 50 and 80 km/h at various points, according to witnesses.
Meanwhile, 911 calls were flooding in, jamming the line and forcing some people to wait two or three minutes to get through. Police were en route.
At 1:30 p.m., police tweeted that “numerous pedestrians have been struck by a white van” in the Yonge and Finch area.
Taxi driver Nana Agyeman-Badu attended to a woman hit by the van and knocked into a glass bus shelter, which shattered around her. “We were trying to take off the pieces of glass that went into her face and hands.”
Agyeman-Badu saw a police car and waved frantically. But the officer couldn’t help.
“He said to me, ‘An ambulance is coming, but where is the van?’” AgyemanBadu pointed south and returned to the woman.
With Yang still chasing, the van blew through a red light at Yonge and Church Ave., hitting a man crossing the street. “He went flying in the air,” said Dainis Cevers, who was driving south on Yonge at the time.
Yang, who continued to honk, initially stopped at the light but decided to go through when he thought it was safe. “He was getting away so I just said ‘F--it.’”
With condo construction coming up on the west side of Yonge, the van couldn’t continue on the sidewalk.
So the driver veered into the northbound lanes for a short stretch, before crossing the median and returning to the southbound lanes and toward Mel Lastman Square, reportedly the site of the highest concentration of victims.
The driver turned right down a laneway in front of Good Life Fitness and then turned left on Beecroft Rd.
A dash-cam video from an anonymous driver published Thursday on Maclean’s website shows the heavily damaged van travelling south on Beecroft through a red light at Sheppard Ave. pursued by an unmarked police cruiser — the same kind as that driven by Const. Lam — with sirens blaring.
The confrontation
Lam, a 42-year-old former engineer who joined Toronto police in 2011, was on traffic duty when the call came over the radio. He was not assigned to the call, but he responded and “happened to bump into the suspect,” according to Deputy Chief Peter Yuen.
Lam was alone when he confronted Minassian and the heavily damaged cargo van on Poyntz Ave., just south of Yonge and Sheppard.
Zaid Yakub and at least two other men were there too. They decided to pull out their phones to film the dramatic scene.
The footage begins with sirens blaring and Lam and Minassian yelling at each other. Minassian pointed a black object — perhaps a cellphone — at Lam and repeatedly gestured behind his back before thrusting his hand forward again, as if drawing a gun.
Lam, pointing his gun at Minassian and yelling at him to get down, walked back to his car and turned off the siren. Minassian: “Kill me!” Lam: “No, get down. Get down.” Minassian: “I have a gun in my pocket.” Lam: “I don’t care. Get down.” Minassian gestured again behind his back, this time with his empty left hand, and pointed his finger at Lam. Lam: “Get down or you’ll be shot.” Minassian: “Shoot me in the head.” Minassian stepped toward Lam, who at this point had holstered his gun, switching to his baton and raising it above his head. Minassian then abruptly retreated as Lam stepped toward him. Minassian tossed away the black object and lay down on the ground. Lam told him to put his hands behind his back so he could handcuff them. Minassian complied.
Seven minutes after the first 911 call, Minassian was under arrest. He was taken to nearby 32 Division.
Police Chief Mark Saunders, meanwhile, had just arrived in New York City for a conference when he was told of the attack. Leaving both his family and staff behind, Saunders returned to the airport and took the next flight back to Toronto.
The scene
While Lam was dealing with Minassian, paramedics, firefighters, police officers, TTC special constables and, in some cases, regular citizens attended to the victims.
The scene was chaotic, with 26 casualties spread over 2.2 km. The sidewalks were covered in blood and debris, while sirens filled the air and news helicopters circled above.
Yang, who had stopped chasing the van around Yonge and Empress, said the streets looked like a battlefield. “Bodies, blood all over the place, people crying.”
Several citizens performed CPR and first aid before professional first responders arrived.
Eight of the eventual 10 fatalities were pronounced dead at the scene, while paramedics rushed injured victims to hospital.
Police took over the Scotiabank location across from Mel Lastman Square to set up a command post. They secured the crime scene, closing the street and combing for evidence.
Watching the news break on TV and social media, the coroner’s office also sprung into action. One coroner was immediately dispatched to the scene and as the severity of the situation became clearer, two more followed. It would be days before they could officially confirm the identities of the dead.
Cautious not to have any misidentifications as there were in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash, police and coroners worked hard to collect victims’ personal belongings.
It would be four days before all10 of the dead were officially identified: Renuka Amarasingha; Anne Marie D’Amico; Betty Forsyth; Eddie Kang; Munir Najjar; Dorothy Sewell; Andrea Bradden, 33; So He Chung, 22; Ji Hun Kim, 22; and Geraldine Brady, 83.
At a Scarborough hotel shortly before 2 p.m., Mayor John Tory was giving a speech to the Scarborough Business Association when he was notified.
He spoke to reporters briefly, saying a “tragic episode” had occurred involving “a number of pedestrians and a vehicle.” He said he could not confirm whether there had been any fatalities, but would be briefed on his way back to city hall.
Sunnybrook
Paramedics called ahead to Sunnybrook to give the emergency department a heads-up that patients were on the way. How many patients there would be was not clear, but the calls kept coming.
By 1:40 p.m., emergency department staff sent an email to senior hospital officials alerting them they could be dealing with a major incident. At 1:47 p.m., the hospital declared a Code Orange — a hospital-wide alert for mass casualty situations — and an announcement was made over the PA system. “Code Orange … This is not a drill.”
Chief surgeon Avery Nathens, who was doing paperwork at the time of the Code Orange announcement, changed into scrubs and rushed to the ER, where he co-ordinated staff for what would be the biggest trauma response ever for Canada’s largest trauma hospital.
But they had been preparing for a moment like this, having ramped up their emergency preparedness last summer and gone through several drills and mock exercises over the last few months.
The practice paid off. With little more than 15 minutes before patients arrived, staff sketched a plan on a white board and assigned roles to ensure patients were triaged, tracked and treated as quickly as possible.
With the emergency department at capacity, nurses scrambled to make space wherever they could, clearing out lesscritical patients and calling on porters to fetch additional beds and equipment.
A TV just inside the sliding glass doors foretold the scale of what doctors and nurses would soon be facing. One ambulance en route, then two — then 10. They arrived over the course of 45 minutes. Stretcher after stretcher barrelling down the hallway toward the trauma room, where the floor is divided by lines of red, yellow and blue tape, to keep everyone’s movement organized. Before the patients arrived teams of doctors and nurses were waiting for them, huddled together around each empty bed.
Two of the 10 patients were pronounced dead on arrival.
At the same time hospital social workers had stationed themselves at the door to the emergency room to intercept victims’ families and direct them to a basement auditorium, where the hospital had set up a support centre for families. The area was a place for families to rest and get information about their loved ones. That’s where one man, fighting through tears Monday evening, learned a family member had died. “What did I do to deserve this?” he said, as a crying woman consoled him.
North York General also called a Code Orange and took in four patients.
The aftermath
With Saunders still making his way back from New York, Deputy Chief Peter Yuen and Tory held a short media briefing outside Earl Haig Secondary School shortly after 4:30 p.m. They said nine people had died while 16 were injured and that a man had been arrested. The numbers were later revised to 10 dead and 14 injured.
Tory said the city was “very well served” by its emergency responders, “and were from the first moment.”
At 32 Division, officers questioned Minassian, while at an undisclosed location a team of cyber crime investigators scoured his Facebook page, gleaning whatever information they could.
Joseph Callaghan, the head Crown Attorney at the North York courthouse, was busy preparing for Minassian’s bail hearing, scheduled for Tuesday morn- ing.
Back at Yonge and Finch, Konstantin Goulich, a dental hygienist who lives in a nearby condo building, was wandering sorrowfully along the police tape throughout his beloved neighbourhood.
He looked at the bodies lying on the street, covered with orange tarps, and he couldn’t speak. He wanted to express his sadness. He didn’t know what to do, but he wanted to do something. So he went to the Dollar Store and picked up two bristol boards and six other pieces of paper, some markers and tape. He also bought a few flowers nearby.
By about 5:15 p.m. he had erected the makeshift memorial at Olive Square, just southeast of Yonge and Finch. He wrote a simple first message — “Our thoughts are with the victims and their families. Rest in peace” — and started encouraging other people to write themselves.
At the Air Canada Centre, before the Maple Leafs hosted the Boston Bruins in a do-or-die Game 6, fans observed a moment of silence.
In the pre-game warm-up, defencemen Ron Hainsey said the Leafs were going to “play our hearts out for this city.” They went on to win 3-1 to force a Game 7 in Boston.
At around 8 p.m., Saunders, Tory, Premier Kathleen Wynne and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale held a news conference near the scene of the attack and confirmed the arrest of 25-year-old Alek Minassian. (Saunders initially misstated Minassian’s first name as Alex.)
Tory said the city’s emergency workers “responded in heroic fashion.”
Goodale said the events “are horrendous, but they do not appear to be connected in any way to national security.”
By nightfall, Goulich’s memorial had grown. Candles were lit and flowers laid. Goulich no longer had to encourage anyone to write a message. Condolences were written in all the neighbourhood’s languages. English. Chinese, Korean, Russian, Persian. All Goulich wanted was to give people an outlet, so he was happy to see his small seed grow into something beautiful. “I just wish it was for a different reason.”