A black-clad gunman opened fire in a busy neighborhood of Toronto on Sunday night.
According to Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders, 14 individuals were shot in the incident.
The shooter, wielding a handgun, was killed in an “exchange of gunfire” after police arrived on the scene, Saunders told reporters at a news conference early Monday morning. A woman has also died from injuries sustained in the attack.
“We have a young lady that is deceased right now,” Saunders said. “And we have a young girl, I believe 8 or 9 years old, that is in critical condition.”
Saunders said the other shooting victims are currently being treated.
The gunfire erupted around 10 p.m. Sunday near Danforth and Logan avenues east of downtown in the Danforth neighborhood, police tweeted. Saunders described the stretch of roadway as “one of the busiest streets in the country.”
Authorities have yet to release information about the shooter, or offer any possible motive.
“Police have not drawn any conclusions about what happened here or why,” Toronto Mayor John Tory told reporters from the scene.
Saunders issued an appeal to Toronto residents who may have information on the shooting.
“If anybody saw anything at any time, here at Danforth and Logan, if they could please contact the police,” Saunders said.
Video reportedly taken from the scene captured the sound of gunfire as pedestrians ducked into nearby buildings.
The attack shattered an otherwise peaceful night on Danforth, also known as Toronto’s Greektown, a name stemming from the inhabitants who filled the neighborhood following World War II.
A mix of restaurants, each year the street is the scene of a popular “Taste of Danforth” festival, a three-day food and entertainment event in August that pulls in more than 1.5 million visitors, according to its website. The broad cultural melting pot featured at the festival — the event boasts Chinese, South Asian, Egyptian, Greek, Japanese, and Azerbaijani dancing — reflects the eclectic blend of the neighborhood.
“For non-Toronto folk: Danforth/Pape is one of those lively, bustling residential areas with tons of families out on summer nights,” columnist Robyn Urback wrote on Twitter following the shooting. “This is horrific.”
Andrew Van Eek, a resident who lives near the shooting, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. he stuck his head out of his window after the gunfire started.
“There was a lot of commotion in the street,” he told the CBC. “I saw somebody come just down the sidewalk and shoot into Demitri’s restaurant.”
Van Eek told the network the suspect was a young white male, dressed in black, who appeared to be in his early 30s.
Another witness told CTV he estimated the gunman fired about 20 shots.
Jody Steinhauer was strolling into a restaurant on Sunday night with her partner, two sets of grandparents, and her children. It was her birthday celebration, she told Radio New Zealand. But when the party was just entering the establishment, they suddenly heard a series of cracks like firecrackers. Restaurant staff ordered everyone to the back of the room. Get down, they said.
“All you could hear was screaming,” Steinhauer recalled. “There was a woman coming in off the street yelling, ‘Help me! Help me!’ She had been shot in the leg.”
The woman was taken into the back of the room and stabilized on a bench. “Thank goodness there was a doctor in the restaurant,” she explained.
Steinhauer ducked into a corner and began firing off tweets about what was happening. “We couldn’t even get through to the emergency 911 numbers because the circuits were so jammed,” she said. “I was able to tweet out to reporters to let them know what was going on.”
The gunman was killed four doors down from where Steinhauer and her family were hiding, she said.
“It’s just terrifying,” she said. “Toronto is a very safe city, with a lot of people from a lot of cultures. But who knows what really happened. Time will tell.”
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