Just three weeks after Future Bakery in Etobicoke was vandalized when a permanent mural and a “Stand with Ukraine” banner were spray-painted with pro-Russian graffiti, the owner says it’s happened again.
Borys Wrzesnewskyj is upset by what he calls a “distraction” when there’s something much greater at stake — the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
Surveillance video obtained by Global News shows a masked man walking up to the side of the Future Bakery Outlet on North Queen Street around 3:30 a.m. Monday morning and splattering paint on Wrzesnewskyj’s “Stand with Ukraine” sign.
Less than a minute later, the video shows the man casually walking away.
Wrzesnewskyj said it was only after reviewing the surveillance video further that he discovered that the night before, around 8 p.m. last Saturday, the same masked man came to the bakery with a knife and began slashing the sign.
“He used a very dangerous weapon in a violent way, took it out on a banner, I hate to imagine what would happen if you were confronted,” Wrzesnewskyz wondered, saying he believes the man came back a third occasion this week but they are still reviewing videotape.
He calls the perpetrator “a confused, misguided hateful person.”
There is a wanted poster of the perpetrator now hanging in the entranceway to the bakery. Wrzesnewskyj is hopeful he can be caught.
Toronto police spokesperson Const. Jenifferjit Sidhu confirmed that two incidents were reported to police on Tuesday morning.
“They are both on-going mischief investigations at this time,” said Sidhu, who writes that specialized officers from the hate crime unit will support the investigation as needed.
In early February, Wrestnewskyj installed an elaborate system of surveillance cameras in and around his property after someone spray-painted Pro-Russian graffiti on the side of his building, destroying an expensive mural and the Stand with Ukraine banner. Toronto police have yet to make an arrest in what they’re calling a “mischief over $5000” investigation.
The president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress says she’s appalled by acts of aggression and vandalism that members of the Ukrainian Canadian community have been subjected to.
Alexandra Chyczij said she is aware of at least two incidents of tire slashings involving Torontonians who had Ukrainian flags on their cars, but said neither of those incidents of vandalism was reported to police. Chyczij urged anyone subjected to aggression or vandalism to report it to police as a hate crime, and to contact the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.