26th May, 2022
Toronto police have shot and killed a rifle-armed man spotted in Scarborough’s Port Union area, with four schools locked down, to avert Uvalde-like disaster.
The armed man’s location was near William G. Davis Junior Public School.
According to Toronto City News, officers received information of a man carrying a gun in the Maberley Crescent and Oxhorn Road area, near Lawrence Avenue East and Port Union Road, just before 1 p.m.
Witness Mike Grieve tells CityNews police shot an armed man near William G. Davis Junior Public School.
The witness tells CityNews that man has died. The Special Investigations Unit (SIU) has been notified.
“I drove around the neighbourhood and heard that they were looking for someone armed with an assault rifle, and they ended up shooting him,” Grieve said in a video sent to CityNews, which shows a heavy police scene and paramedics.
William G. Davis Junior Public School, Joseph Howe Senior Public School, and Sir Oliver Mowat Collegiate Institute were all placed in lockdown due to the investigation.
In an update, the TDSB said lockdowns and the hold and secures have been lifted except for William G. Davis Junior Public School, which remains in the hold and secure “to ensure an orderly dismissal at the end of the day.”
Toronto police said there is no threat to public safety and encourage parents to pick up their children from school.
The police investigation comes after the tragic, fatal shooting of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old barricaded himself inside a classroom and began firing his assault rifle.
Seventeen others were wounded in the shooting.
It is the third-deadliest American school shooting after the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting and the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.