It’s unclear if it was an attack, but one police source reportedly says it was deliberate.
A man driving a white van plowed through a crowd of pedestrians in downtown Toronto on Monday afternoon, killing at least nine and injuring at least 16.
The driver sped down sidewalks at 40 miles per hour and traveled between a half-mile and a mile before being stopped by authorities and taken into custody .
Canadian officials have yet to say whether they believe it was a terror attack, but a law enforcement official briefed on the situation told CNN that the act was deliberate. Trucks have become a terrorist weapon of choice in cities including New York, where eight were killed last October, and Nice, where 86 people were killed in 2016.
John Flengas, the acting emergency medical services supervisor for Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, which has received several victims from the incident, described the scene to CTV News as “ pure carnage .”
“It’s unprecedented. We’ve never seen anything like this in Toronto up until now,” he said, according to the Globe and Mail. “We never thought this would happen here.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement expressing condolences for the victims on Monday afternoon. “Our hearts go out to anyone affected. We’re obviously going to have more to learn and more to say in the coming hours,” he said.
According to a witness, the van’s driver pointed what appeared to be a gun at a police officer before being taken into custody.
Although police have not commented on whether or not the driver has any affiliation with a group such as ISIS, the method of attack resembles other ISIS-directed and inspired attacks around the world in recent years.
These kinds of attacks are notoriously difficult to prevent because it’s difficult for authorities to prevent an individual working alone from using an everyday vehicle as a weapon. Indeed, that’s in large part why terror groups — particularly ISIS — encourage their followers to use this method of attack.
