At least 10 pedestrians died and 15 were injured when a man in a van mowed them down in north Toronto on Monday. The incident took place at the intersection Yonge Street and Finch Avenue East around 1.30 pm local time (11 pm Indian Standard Time).
Toronto police chief Mark Saunders said the suspect, Alex Minassian, had run afoul of the law on earlier occasions. He added that the police were conducting a homicide investigation.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said it was not a “terrorist act” as there appeared to be no “national security connection”, the National Post reported. “The events that happened on the streets behind us are horrendous, but they do not appear to be connected in any way possible to national security, at least at this time,” he told reporters.
A video by a passerby showed that the van’s driver alighted the vehicle after the act and begged the police to shoot him dead. After a standoff with the police, he surrendered.
Sunnybrook Hospital’s Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Executive Dan Cass told the media that the hospital had been put on alert to receive mass casualties. Two of the ten people taken to the hospital were pronounced dead on arrival. Others were taken to St Michael’s Hospital and North York General Hospital.
Not all the injured have been identified, or their families notified of their injuries.
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