Three males sporting masks and carrying handguns and an assault rifle entered a pub in Toronto late Friday night time and “opened hearth indiscriminately,” injuring 12 individuals, the police stated.
Six individuals had been taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds, Paul MacIntyre, a police superintendent with the organized crime enforcement unit, stated throughout a information convention on Saturday, and 6 had been in any other case injured, together with by damaged or flying glass.
However, he added, “by the grace of God,” there have been no fatalities. The suspects remained at giant, the police stated.
It was a typical night time at a neighborhood pub, Superintendent MacIntire stated. Folks stood on the bar or sat at cubicles, socializing with pals over meals and drinks, because the bar, Piper Arms, on Progress Avenue within the Scarborough district, celebrated its opening night.
Then at round 10:40 p.m., three males burst into the pub and “simply seemed on the crowd and opened hearth,” stated Superintendent MacIntyre, who reviewed surveillance video of the assault.
Patrons started “ducking for canopy or they’re falling on the ground as a result of they’ve been struck,” he stated. A few of the patrons tried to flee the taking pictures, fleeing to the basement to cover.
The suspects then acquired right into a car and drove away, the police stated.
“When officers arrived on scene, there have been some individuals laying on the ground,” Superintendent MacIntyre stated. “There have been others sitting within the sales space or the chairs, sitting the place they’d been shot.”
The taking pictures left behind an “eerie” crime scene, he stated, with meals deserted at tables, scattered sneakers and purses, shattered glass partitions and “blood all around the flooring.”
Calls to the Piper Arms on Saturday weren’t instantly picked up.
Superintendent MacIntyre stated that the police had “no concept” the place the suspects had been, and that their motive was nonetheless unclear.
Requested in the event that they posed a hazard to most people, he stated it was “arduous to say ‘no,’” including: “What we had proper now could be we had three guys stroll right into a pub and open hearth. So yeah, I’m involved.”
“This was a brazen and reckless act of violence that’s actually shaken our group and the town itself,” he stated.
In a social media post early Saturday, Mayor Olivia Chow referred to as it “an early and ongoing investigation,” including that she was “deeply troubled” by the experiences of the taking pictures.
“My ideas are with the victims and their households,” she stated.
