TORONTO -- Ten people were killed Monday and 15 injured when a van deliberately plowed into pedestrians along a busy street in Toronto in the latest such incident in a major Western city.
The city’s police chief, Mark Saunders, said the incident appeared to be deliberate and identified the driver of the van as Alek Minassian, 25.
The driver of the van, which was rented, was arrested without incident, Saunders said. The van jumped the curb and mowed down defenseless pedestrians indiscriminately over a stretch of over one kilometer, witnesses quoted in media reports said.
Similar acts in other cities in recent years have been carried out by terrorists, but Ralph Goodale, Canada’s minister of public safety, said it is too early to say whether the Toronto incident was terrorism. The alert level for the country has not been raised, he said.
Goodale also said it was unknown whether the incident was connected to a meeting of the G7 foreign ministers currently taking place in Toronto, Canada’s biggest city.
The incident happened at around 1:30 pm at the busy intersection of Yonge Street and Finch Avenue, in the city’s northern suburb of North York, according to the Toronto Police Service.
Alex Shaker, who witnessed the incident, said the van was traveling at a high speed on the footpath.
“He started going down on the sidewalk and crumbling down people one by one,” Shaker told CTV News Channel.
Shaker said he saw the vehicle strike someone with a baby stroller.
“He just destroyed so many people’s lives, every single thing that got in his way,” Shaker said.
Video footage posted on Twitter shows passers-by providing medical aid to victims on the ground
“Our hearts go out to anyone affected,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa. “Obviously we’ll have more to say in the coming hours.”
Police shut down the intersection and service of the city’s subway system was shut down in the area.
Mayor John Tory said the situation was under control and urged residents to go home.
“The city is in safe hands at the moment,” Tory said at the news conference. “It is a time to be as calm as we can be.”
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