Police have arrested a suspect after a white van mounted the curb and struck numerous pedestrians in Toronto.
The incident happened on Yonge Street south of Finch Avenue around 1:30 p.m. today.
A suspect was arrested beside the van on Poyntz Avenue off of Yonge, just south of Sheppard Avenue West. The van is marked as belonging to the rental company Ryder.
Carol Roberts, who witnessed the aftermath, said she saw “a lot of people lying lifeless on the ground.”
“It was just so many bodies,” she told CTV News Channel.
Witness Phil Zullo, who was driving northbound, says he first noticed the commotion when he saw police taking down a male suspect.
Zullo says he continued north, where he saw “shoes and hats flown everywhere.”
A witness named Kash told local news station CP24 that he was having lunch at a Jack Astors restaurant when he came out and saw four bodies on the ground in front of Mel Lastman Square.
“People were trying to revive them obviously to no avail,” he said.
The #Toronto ramming suspect being taken into custody. pic.twitter.com/MpZlo4hcdm
— Breaking News (@NewsNerve) April 23, 2018
Former NYC Police commissioner Bill Bratton states on @MSNBC his sources in Canada say van driver in #Toronto was known to Police and now consider incident a terrorist attack. Motivation and affiliation unknown.
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) April 23, 2018
Death toll unconfirmed. Some reporting two, some as high as nine. Some reporting ethnicity of driver as Middle Eastern, but that too is unconfirmed.
BTW, look at the retweets for the tweet saying driver is Middle Eastern versus those saying driver is white.
UPDATE —
Toronto police confirm nine people dead and 16 injured in the Toronto van attack.
— Adrian Humphreys (@AD_Humphreys) April 23, 2018
NEXT DAY UPDATE —
Death toll rises to 10. Indications are mental illness of some sort rather than political terrorism
We’ve just obtained this Facebook post from the accused Alek Minassian, suspected in the #yongeandfinch mass casualty. Posted early this afternoon. FYI Incel=involuntarily celibate. Elliot Rodger killed 6 ppl at UCSB in 2014 before killing himself @globalnewsto pic.twitter.com/W84xt3D85I
— Catherine McDonald (@cmcdonaldglobal) April 23, 2018
INCEL is a group of men who are involuntary celibate. Chads & Stacy’s refers to the wealthier men and women who are not celibate. This attack points to a frustrated mentality ill man rather than conventional terror
— CanadianInvestigator (@CDNinvestigator) April 23, 2018
So like this mass murder four years ago, the motive seems to be an inability to get laid.