05:37 (GMT+4) A rented van plowed down a crowded Toronto sidewalk Monday, killing 10 people and injuring 15 before the driver fled and was quickly arrested in a confrontation with police, Canadian authorities said.
Witnesses said the driver was moving fast and appeared to be acting deliberately, but police officials would not comment on the cause or any possible motive.
Speaking at a news conference Monday night, Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders raised the initial death toll of nine to 10, saying another victim had died at a hospital. He said 15 others were hospitalized.
Saunders identified the man detained after the incident as Alek Minassian, 25, a resident of the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill. He said the suspect had not been known to police previously.
Asked if there was any evidence of a connection to international terrorism, the chief said only, “Based on what we have there’s nothing that has it to compromise the national security at this time.”
But a senior national government official said earlier that authorities had not turned over the investigation to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a sign that investigators believed it unlikely terrorism was the motive. The official agreed to reveal that information only if not quoted by name.
Authorities released few details in the case, saying the investigation was still underway, with witnesses being interviewed and surveillance video being examined.
“I can assure the public all our available resources have been brought in to investigate this tragic situation,” Toronto Police Services Deputy Chief Peter Yuen said earlier.
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 and that the government had not raised its terrorism alert.
The driver was heading south on busy Yonge Street around 1:30 p.m. and the streets were crowded with people enjoying an unseasonably warm day when the van jumped onto the sidewalk.
Ali Shaker, who was driving near the van at the time, 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.”
Witness Peter Kang told CTV News that the driver did not seem to make any effort to stop.
“If it was an accident he would have stopped,” Kang said. “But the person just went through the sidewalk. He could have stopped.”
Video broadcast on several Canadian outlets showed police arresting the driver, dressed in dark clothes, after officers surrounded him and his rental Ryder van several blocks from where the incident occurred in the North York neighborhood of northern Toronto. He appeared to make some sort of gesture at the police with an object in his hand just before they ordered him to lie down on the ground and took him away.
Witness Phil Zullo told Canadian Press that he saw police arresting the suspect and people “strewn all over the road” where the incident occurred.
“I must have seen about five, six people being resuscitated by bystanders and by ambulance drivers,” Zullo said. “It was awful. Brutal.”
Police shut down the Yonge and Finch intersection following the incident and Toronto’s transit agency said it had suspended service on the subway line running through the area.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his sympathies for those involved. “Our hearts go out to everyone affected,” Trudeau said in Ottawa. “We are going to have more to learn and more to say in the coming hours.”
01:39 (GMT+4) A driver plowed his white Ryder rental van into a crowd, killing nine people and injuring 16 along a roughly mile-long stretch of busy Toronto sidewalk during lunch hour on a sunny Monday afternoon, police said, Reuters reported.
Officials declined to answer questions about what motivated the driver to steer his vehicle toward people just before 1:30 p.m. (1730 GMT). They said the driver was in custody and stopped short of calling it a deliberate act.
But at least one witness described the driver as appearing to deliberately target victims on his roughly mile-long (1.6 km-long) rampage, according to media reports.
“This is going to be a long investigation,” Toronto Deputy Chief Peter Yuen told a news conference after disclosing the death toll.
A Reuters witness saw at least two tarp-covered bodies at the site of the incident. Five people remained in critical condition at Sunnybrook Health Services Centre on Monday afternoon, the hospital said.
Canada’s public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, declined to comment on what may have motivated the attack.
“The investigation is at a stage where no further information can be confirmed at this point,” Goodale told a news conference said. “The police are conducting obviously their thorough investigation to determine what happened and why it happened, the motivations involved.”
Ryder System Inc (R.N) spokeswoman Claudia Panfil confirmed that one of the company’s rental vehicles had been involved and said the company was cooperating with authorities.
There have been a string of deadly vehicle attacks in the United States and Europe, including an Oct. 31 attack in New York that killed eight. Islamic State militant group encourages its supporters to use vehicles for attacks.
00:52 (GMT+4) One person is dead and seven others are in a Toronto hospital fighting for their lives after a van mounted a curb in the city’s Yonge and Finch area, striking “numerous pedestrians” in its path, CTV Toronto reported.
Toronto police say were first called to the area at around 1:27 p.m. for reports of a traumatic hit-and-run incident.
Sunnybrook Hospital later confirmed that eight people had been admitted to their trauma centre for treatment.
Of the victims, they said one arrived without vital signs and was later pronounced dead. Five others remain in critical condition, one person is in serious condition and another is in fair condition.
“The patients I was dealing with, there were basically a lot of extremities fractures, that kind of thing,” Acting EMS supervisor John Flengas told reporters. “(It is) unconfirmed because we have so many patients, they have to be diagnosed, they have to be X-rayed, they have to have ultrasounds. We don’t know 100 per cent, for sure.”
North York General Hospital also confirmed that they have received a number of patients following the incident, though the exact number of victims and the severity of their injuries is not yet known.
Police later arrested one man and seized a white van during a dramatic takedown a short distance away from the initial scene.
Witnesses reported seeing a white van "crashing into everything" before being apprehended on a sidewalk on Poyntz Avenue, just south of Sheppard Avenue West.
A man was seen next to a white rental van, pointing what appeared to be a gun at police officers. Officers could be heard shouting, “get down!”
After a brief standoff, the suspect can be seen dropping whatever was in his hands as police quickly surround him and take him into custody.
22:41 (GMT+4) A white van struck multiple people at a major intersection in Toronto’s northern suburbs on Monday and police have taken the driver into custody, police said on Twitter, Reuters reported.
Police in Canada’s largest city initially said eight to 10 people had been injured but later said it was unclear exactly how many had been hurt or the extent of their injuries.
“Too early to confirm the number of pedestrians struck or their injuries,” police said on Twitter, adding that the incident occurred shortly before 1:27 ET.
The pedestrians were struck in the northern part of the city, about 30 kms (18 miles) from downtown, where the Group of Seven foreign ministers were meeting on Monday.
There was no noticeable change in security around the Intercontinental Hotel where the foreign ministers were about to gather for a group photograph.