charles street toronto shooting

Another daytime shooting at a busy Toronto intersection has people calling us Gotham City

Toronto has already started the week off on a bad foot, crime-wise, as yet another brazen shooting startled one of the city's busiest intersections awake this morning.

Police are reporting that just after sunrise around 6 a.m., multiple people were shot near Bloor and Yonge Streets, sending two victims to hospital with serious injuries as an unknown number of suspects fled the scene in a Black SUV.

The bustling corner was closed off before most residents even began heading to work, with some terrified locals saying they'd heard more than a dozen shots ring out as they were starting their day.

The violence comes far too soon after a woman — who it turned out was a random passerby — was shot and killed in broad daylight on Friday outside of a Shoppers Drug Mart on Queen Street East.

And only a day earlier, a man was stabbed on a subway train pulling into Eglinton Station, also in the middle of the day, just when it felt like the city may have finally gotten past a many months-long streak of assaults on public transit.

For not the first time, people are drawing the comparison between T.O. and the fictitious, crime-riddled Gotham City, worrying about both their own safety and the metropolis's future in general.

Much like the reactions to the viral video of a man flagrantly smoking crack on a TTC bus late last week, citizens do not seem confident that our leadership can adequately take on the crime that seems to be plaguing the 6ix with alarming episodes daily.

Jokes about sending social workers to shootings like today's — a proposition Mayor-elect Olivia Chow and many in favour of defunding the police have floated for certain crimes in the past — abound on social media this morning while others are blaming Doug Ford and wondering if he's still at his cottage rather than dealing with the province's problems.

Many are also bringing up Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's gun ban, which they're arguing has been proven ineffective given that so many incidents of gun violence in recent memory have been committed with illegal firearms.

Countless quips about licensed duck hunters being involved in the shooting today are also all over Twitter. Many are piping in with "just your typical day in Toronto" comments as well, warning one another to stay away from the downtown core and off the TTC.

Police confirmed in a press conference that the Monday morning savagery took place outside of a block of businesses at 7 Charles Street, just west of Yonge.

They also noted that officers had responded to a potentially connected stunt driving call regarding multiple vehicles in the same area just prior, and that "there is a possibility that this incident has occurred as result of road rage."

The victims were identified as a man and a woman, both in their 20s, whose injuries have been deemed non-life-threatening. Anyone who was in the area, may have witnessed the incident or the getaway car, or may have relevant dash cam footage is being asked to contact the force.

Lead photo by

Global News


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