A man is dead and four others are injured after a shooting outside of a school in northwest Toronto late Sunday.
Toronto police said emergency crews were called to the area of Kipling Avenue and Mount Olive Drive, just north of Finch Avenue West, at 10:53 p.m. for reports of a shooting.
“Officers arrived on scene within three minutes, where they located five victims suffering from gunshot wounds,” Det. Sgt. Phillip Campbell from the Toronto police homicide unit told reporters at a press conference Monday morning.
“Officers immediately attended to the victims, providing first aid.”
The victims, who Campbell said were all men ranging in age from around 40 to 60 years old, were taken to hospital.
One of the victims — a 61-year-old man — died from his injuries.
The other four remain in hospital, one of whom has “serious, life-altering injuries,” Campbell said.
The shooting happened in the parking lot of North Albion Collegiate Institute, Campbell said.
The Toronto District School Board said in a post on X that the school and on-site daycare would be closed Monday, with students moving to remote learning for the day.
Campbell said it’s believed there was a group of around 15 to 20 people gathered there after playing soccer earlier in the day.
“Really just socializing, enjoying the fresh air,” he said.
Any possible motive for the shooting is still not known.
Campbell said he didn’t know if the shooting was targeted or not, adding that it’s “very early” in the investigation.
“There’s a lot of things that we’re looking at right now, including any evidence in the area and interviews,” he said.
Campbell said officers are looking for a black or dark-coloured newer model pickup truck.
Two suspects believed to be involved in the incident were wearing dark clothing, he said.
“The suspects were in the area in a vehicle and we believe they exited the vehicle and shot at our victims,” Campbell said.
The shooting happened in “a fraction of a minute,” Campbell said, adding that officers don’t believe there was an exchange of gunfire.
He said it wasn’t a shootout and was “one-sided.”
Campbell said the victims have been “very helpful” and have been providing information to officers.
Anyone with information was asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.
“You will see an increased presence of police officers in the area, including our neighbourhood community officers,” Campbell said.
2 other Etobicoke shootings over the weekend were random: police
At the same press conference Monday, Supt. Ron Taverner provided details on two other shootings that happened in Toronto’s west end over the weekend, both of which are believed to have been random.
On Saturday just after 10 p.m. in the area of Martin Grove and Albion roads, which is not far from where Sunday night’s mass shooting took place, a 20-year-old man was shot multiple times, Taverner said.
“We believe he was a totally innocent victim,” he said.
Police previously said he suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
A few hours later, at around 2:40 a.m. Sunday, there was a shooting in the area of Martin Grove Road and Richgrove Drive, Taverner said, which is farther south but still in the city’s west end.
A 14-year-old boy was walking out of an apartment building and was randomly shot, Taverner said.
He is recovering in hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Taverner said officers plan to “step up” their vigilance in the shooting areas. A command post will be set up in the area of Sunday night’s mass shooting.
“We’ll be bringing other resources in from other areas,” he said.
“This is very, very concerning to, obviously, us and the community.”
Taverner was asked if he was suggesting that the mass shooting was also random, but he said he has “no knowledge to that at all.”
“As the detective sergeant has said, this is very early on in the investigation and obviously we hope to get some further leads,” he said.
“I mean, everything is a consideration right now,” he later added.
“There’s a lot of pieces at work to try and put all this together and it takes time to do that.”
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