Van attack suspect Alek Minassian, 25, was not previously known to authorities and no motive has yet emerged for the assault that killed 10.
Canadian police were trying to establish Tuesday why a driver plowed a rented van along a crowded Toronto sidewalk, killing 10 people and injuring 15, in what eyewitness accounts and surveillance video appeared to indicate was a deliberate attack.
Investigators said that suspect Alek Minassian, 25, was not previously known to authorities, that no motive had yet emerged, but that his actions seemed deliberate.
Minassian repeatedly mounted the sidewalk with a white Ryder van and slammed into pedestrians along a stretch of Toronto’s busy Yonge Street on Monday. He was arrested near the scene after a brief, but tense, confrontation with police officers.
“The incident definitely looked deliberate,” Police Chief Mark Saunders told reporters at a late-night news conference. Saunders said Minassian lives in Richmond Hill, a suburb of Toronto. An online social media profile described him as a college student.
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Police would comment on a possible motive, but played down a possible connection to terrorism at time when Toronto this week is hosting Group of Seven foreign and security ministers for a summit. “Based on what we have there’s nothing that has it to compromise the national security at this time,” Saunders said.
The incident conjured the memory of recent mass-casualty events where someone intentionally drove a vehicle into a crowd. Such attacks have been increasingly used by terrorists, but in other instances, the driver acted out of mental illness or simple rage.
More: Toronto is the most recent of many deliberate attacks involving vehicles
Contributing: Associated Press
