10 dead as van ploughs into Toronto pedestrians
‘DELIBERATE ACT’ Officials say incident was isolated, driver not known to cops TORONTO
:In one of the worst acts of carnage in Canada, a van ploughed into pedestrians in a busy business district of Toronto, causing 10 fatalities and leaving 15 people injured.
The driver of the van was identified as 25-year-old Alek Minassian. The incident occurred around 1.30pm on Monday, close to the intersection of Yonge Street and Finch Avenue, a major business centre with several office buildings.
Over a period of approximately 20 minutes, the driver steered the white van on to the sidewalk, crashing into multiple pedestrians.
The driver was finally confronted by a Toronto Police officer, who subdued him and placed him under arrest.
A stretch of over a kilometre in the North York area of the city was blocked by police as a crime zone, even as makeshift memorials to the victims cropped up in the vicinity.
In dramatic cellphone video of the confrontation between Miassian and the policeman, the driver is heard shouting “Kill me!” as the officer draws his weapon to get him to surrender.
At one point, the driver threat- ens the policeman, saying he has a gun in his pocket. Finally, the standoff ends as the policeman rushes him, sends him to the ground and handcuffs him.
No motive has as yet been attributed to this violent attack.
According to his Linkedin profile, Minassian was from Richmond Hill, a suburb of Toronto, and was a student of computer software at Seneca College from 2011 till this year.
The van he used was rented from a company called Ryder and, in a statement, it said it was “cooperating fully with authorities”.
Officials believe this was an isolated incident and Canada’s public safety and emergency preparedness minister Ralph Goodale told the media in Toronto that “on the basis of all available information at the present time there would appear to be no national security connection to this particular incident”.
Toronto Police chief Mark Saunder described the rampage as “deliberate” but said during a news conference that Minassian was not known to police nor was there any indication he was a member of any terror organisation.