‘Heavy hearts’
A college campus is in mourning after two international students, aged 19, were struck and killed on a Scarborough sidewalk by an alleged drunk driver,
The man accused of killing two 19-year-old pedestrians in an impaired driving crash in Scarborough wiped away tears and appeared emotional as he was denied bail in court Monday evening, less than 24 hours after the crash.
Michael Johnson, 40, of Pickering, mostly kept his head bowed in his hands throughout his lengthy bail hearing in a Scarborough courtroom. At times, he could be seen breathing heavily, his body shaking, before Justice Thomas Cleary made his ruling.
Bail is typically denied in cases that include firearms and vulnerable people in the community, but a car can also be considered a dangerous weapon, Cleary noted, ruling that “a detention order is necessary.”
Centennial College identified the two dead teens Monday as students Damir Kussain of Kazakhstan and Wei Jie Zhu-Li of China.
The school said Wei Jie’s older brother, 20-year-old Jun Jie Zhu-Li, was also injured in the crash and is in hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Bail would not have been appropriate for Johnson, Cleary said in court, because of the allegation the driver was drunk and two people are dead.
Johnson is facing nine charges in total, including multiple counts each of impaired driving causing death and dangerous driving causing death.
Toronto police said Johnson was driving a 2014 Mazda east on Progress Avenue at Markham Road at about 6:35 p.m. on Sunday when he went through the intersection and lost control of the car. He then mounted the sidewalk, struck a guardrail and hit three pedestrians who had been walking on the south sidewalk, police said.
When police arrived, two 19year-old men were lying on the ground. They were taken to hospital, where they later died.
Police said the three men were headed out to get a bite to eat when they were hit.
“Two young men dead. Another in hospital. Simply walking along the sidewalk,” Toronto police traffic services Supt. Scott Baptist tweeted Monday morning, adding the crash was a “tragic collision and completely preventable.”
Johnson was brought into court in handcuffs, wearing a black jacket, dark blue pants and black shoes, his hair clean and short.
About a dozen people were in the audience for the hearing. One woman, seated with Johnson’s family, could be seen sobbing throughout. As the judge read his decision, one family member put her hands over her mouth. Another fell to her knees in tears.
A publication ban was imposed on information introduced during the proceeding.
“It is with deep sadness and heavy hearts that we must inform our Centennial College community of a tragic singlevehicle collision near Progress Campus last night that resulted in the deaths of two of our students and serious injury to another,” Marilyn Herie, vicepresident (academic) said.
Herie said about 250 Centennial students are living on campus over the holiday break, many of them too far from home to make the trip back.
The college said it was arranging for on-site grief counselling.
By Monday morning, the intersection had been reopened, but tire marks were still visible on a long stretch of the sidewalk where the driver went over the curb and hit the pedestrians.
Shafwan Kaushik, who works at a nearby Petro Canada gas station, said the intersection is always “too busy” with cars getting off or on Highway 401, or going to the Scarborough Town Centre.
Photographs of the crash scene, which showed skid marks on the sidewalk leading up to the right-hand guardrail along Progress Avenue, prompted several people to ask why that barrier was not instead between the road and the pedestrian path.
Jessica Spieker, a spokesperson for Friends and Families for Safe Streets, said, “It would make far more sense to use the guardrail to protect vulnerable pedestrians.”
City staff did not immediately respond to request for comment about the location of the guardrail.
Johnson is next scheduled to appear in court by video on Jan. 3.
Forty pedestrians have been killed on Toronto streets so far this year.
With files from Michael Lewis, Emily Mathieu, Osobe Waberi and Jacob Lorinc