| Van plows into Toronto sidewalk, killing 10 and injuring 15 | | | Agencies
A 25-year-old in a rented van plowed down a Toronto sidewalk crowded with lunchtime strollers Monday, killing 10 people and injuring 15 in what appeared to witnesses and the city’s police chief as a deliberate attack. The driver was quickly arrested in a tense but brief confrontation with officers a few blocks away.
Witnesses and the police chief said the driver, identified by authorities as Alek Minassian, was moving fast and appeared to intentionally jump a curb in the North York neighborhood as people filled the sidewalks on a warm afternoon. He continued for more than a mile, knocking out a fire hydrant and leaving bodies strewn in his wake.
Officials would not comment on a possible motive except to play down a possible connection to terrorism, a thought that occurred to many following a series of attacks involving trucks and pedestrians in Europe and the presence in Toronto this “The incident definitely looked deliberate,” Saunders said at a news conference Monday night as he announced that the initial death toll of nine had risen to 10 after another victim died at a hospital. He said 15 others were hospitalized.Saunders said Minassian, who lives in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill, 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.”
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. |
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