A “hoax device” that Toronto police believe was deliberately “made to look like an actual bomb” was detonated on a university campus in the city after road closures and evacuations took place.
Police said they were called to the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus, near Ellesmere Road and Morningside Avenue, just before 4 p.m. on Tuesday when a suspicious package was discovered.
Police officers, bomb experts, paramedics and firefighters were all sent to the scene, where the university told Global News its building was evacuated.
Toronto Police Duty Insp. Dan Pravica said on Tuesday evening that, unlike suspicious package calls on other occasions in the city where the call can be the result of some kind of miscommunication, the device at the University of Toronto was designed to look real.
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Pravica said bomb experts at the scene inspected the suspicious package with a remote robot, photographed and X-rayed it. The result of that close inspection made them fear it was a real bomb, which was remotely detonated “when safe to do so” around 6 p.m.
The device, found inside a university building, “looked like a bomb with wires,” Pravica said, with officials only able to determine it was a “hoax device” much later.
Toronto police are now scouring through security footage in the building and asking anyone with information to come forward as they search for a suspect.
Pravica said a “plethora” of resources were wasted by the hoax.
“You’re looking at the officers from 43 Division,” he said. “You’re looking at campus security… we then have to involve Toronto fire service, regular officers with their hazmat unit as well as EMS in case something does happen. We then have our own explosives unit — it ties up a lot of resources.”
The device forced police to close down Military Trail, located around Ellesmere Road and Morningside Avenue, and send those using a daycare located inside the building home.