A man carrying a gun in a neighbourhood full of schools has been shot by the police in Toronto days after a mass shooting in a primary school located in Texas. The local media reported that the incident prompted five nearby schools to be placed under precautionary lockdowns.
Toronto Police Chief James Ramer told a media briefing that the armed man was shot after he confronted officers who questioned him regarding his weapon.
According to Ramer, the police were alerted about the armed man by bystanders in an eastern neighborhood of Toronto.
“There’s no threat to public safety. Due to the proximity to a school, I certainly understand the trauma and how traumatic this must have been for the staff, students and parents, given recent events that have happened in the United States,” he said.
PERSON WITH A GUN: UPDATE
Maberley Cres + Oxhorn Rd
– Officers located man
– Police firearm discharged
– Suspect injured@TorontoMedics on scene
^lb
— Toronto Police Operations (@TPSOperations) May 26, 2022
A “police firearm” was “discharged” approximately 130 meters (426 ft) from the William G Davis Junior Public School and the suspect was described as a male in his late teens or early 20s, was injured according to the Twitter account of Toronto police.
A spokeswoman for the Special Investigations Unit told the CBC that police have blocked about 300 meters of roadway near the scene while special investigations officers conduct their probe, police have blocked about 300 meters of roadway near the scene after preliminary evidence showed that two police officers had fired their weapons, and the suspect was pronounced dead at the scene.
Also see | Deadliest school mass shootings in United States in the last decade
Two days ago, an 18-year-old killed 21 people including 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Texas. Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group reported that over 200 mass shootings have taken place in the US in just five months of 2022.
According to a 2021 analysis by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Canada’s rate of firearm homicides is 0.5 per 100,000 people, far lower than the rate of the United States, which is 4.12.
(With inputs from agencies)
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