Driver arrested after van kills 10 in Toronto
TORONTO – The driver of a rented van that jumped onto a crowded Toronto sidewalk Monday, killing 10 people and injuring 15, drove away from the scene but was quickly arrested.
Witnesses said the driver appeared to be acting deliberately, but Canadian police said they did not yet know the cause or any possible motive.
Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders identified the suspect in custody as Alex Minassian, a 25-year-old from the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill.
The incident occurred as Cabinet ministers from the major industrial countries were gathered in Canada to discuss a range of international issues in the run-up to the G7 meeting near Quebec City in June.
Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale said that it was too soon to say whether the crash was a case of international terrorism.
A white van jumped a curb and slammed into pedestrians Monday on a crowded Toronto street, killing at least 10 people, injuring 15 and leaving witnesses stunned by the carnage.
The driver was arrested near the scene, Toronto police said. Details were sketchy and police said a cause or motive for the 1:30 p.m. incident is uncertain. Canada’s minister of public safety, Ralph Goodale, said it’s too soon to say whether the crash is a case of international terrorism, and the nation has not changed its terrorism alert level.
But Toronto’s police chief, Mark Saunders, said the driver — who he identified as Alek Minassian — appeared to intentionally target pedestrians.
“The actions definitely looked deliberate,” Saunders told reporters at an evening news briefing.
A witness, Phil Zullo, told Canadian Press that he saw police arresting a man who had been driving a Ryder rental truck and saw people “strewn all over the road” along a busy section of Yonge Street and Finch Avenue.
“It must have seen about five, six people being resuscitated by bystanders and by ambulance drivers,” Zullo said. “It was awful. Brutal.”
Ali Shaker, who was driving near the van, told Canadian broadcast outlet CP24 that the driver appeared to be moving deliberately through the crowd at more than 30 mph.
“He just went on the sidewalk,” a distraught Shaker said. “He just started hitting everybody, man. He hit every single person on the sidewalk. Anybody in his way he would hit.” Another witness, Ham Yu-Jin, told
The Toronto Star: “I was in my car and I saw a white van going on the sidewalk. ... I heard a big bang and the van hit a bus shelter and hit people. I turned my car on and chased the van. I’m so lucky, I could have been hit.”