Three men wearing masks and carrying handguns and an assault rifle entered a pub in Toronto late Friday night and “opened fire indiscriminately,” injuring 12 people, the police said.
Six people were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds, Paul MacIntyre, a police superintendent with the organized crime enforcement unit, said during a news conference on Saturday, and six were otherwise injured, including by broken or flying glass.
But, he added, “by the grace of God,” there were no fatalities. The suspects remained at large, the police said.
It was a typical night at a neighborhood pub, Superintendent MacIntire said. People stood at the bar or sat at booths, socializing with friends over food and drinks, as the bar, Piper Arms, on Progress Avenue in the Scarborough district, celebrated its opening night.
Then at around 10:40 p.m., three men burst into the pub and “just looked at the crowd and opened fire,” said Superintendent MacIntyre, who reviewed surveillance video of the attack.
Patrons began “ducking for cover or they’re falling on the floor because they’ve been struck,” he said. Some of the patrons tried to escape the shooting, fleeing to the basement to hide.
The suspects then got into a vehicle and drove away, the police said.
“When officers arrived on scene, there were some people laying on the floor,” Superintendent MacIntyre said. “There were others sitting in the booth or the chairs, sitting where they’d been shot.”
The shooting left behind an “eerie” crime scene, he said, with food abandoned at tables, scattered shoes and handbags, shattered glass walls and “blood all over the floor.”
Calls to the Piper Arms on Saturday were not immediately picked up.
Superintendent MacIntyre said that the police had “no idea” where the suspects were, and that their motive was still unclear.
Asked if they posed a danger to the general public, he said it was “hard to say ‘no,’” adding: “What we had right now is we had three guys walk into a pub and open fire. So yeah, I’m concerned.”
“This was a brazen and reckless act of violence that’s really shaken our community and the city itself,” he said.
In a social media post early Saturday, Mayor Olivia Chow called it “an early and ongoing investigation,” adding that she was “deeply troubled” by the reports of the shooting.
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families,” she said.
