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A single shot struck the front of the United States Consulate at 360 University Avenue in downtown Toronto at about 4:45 a.m. on Monday, July 27. A Toronto Police officer standing on a security detail outside the building heard the round and reported it immediately.
Deputy Chief Frank Barredo told reporters at the scene that one shot appears to have been fired, damaging the front of the consulate. Two security officers were inside the building at the time. No injuries were reported.
The officer on the detail saw a white late-model Honda Accord with no licence plates speeding away. Officers in 52 Division later located the vehicle and followed it onto the northbound Don Valley Parkway. The pursuit reached speeds above 140 kilometres per hour before officers called it off. Police helicopter support was not available at the time.
"It is a great advantage to police in high-speed pursuits when we simply cannot pursue them on the ground, if you will, because of the danger it poses to the public," Barredo said.
Southbound University Avenue was closed at Dundas Street to vehicles and pedestrians while officers worked the scene. No suspect description was released, and no arrests have been made.
The Toronto Police Service's Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force is leading the investigation with help from the RCMP's counter-terrorism unit. Barredo said investigators will treat the case with the same seriousness as the earlier attack on the same building.
That earlier attack came on March 10, when the consulate was also struck by gunfire. American authorities linked it to an alleged international campaign by Iranian-backed groups against targets in Europe and North America, and an Iraqi national in the United States now faces terrorism offences tied to it. Canadian investigators described the March incident as a gun-for-hire scheme in which young people were recruited to shoot at the building, and police have said three suspects were apprehended. The permanent police detail outside the consulate was put in place after that shooting.
Police could not say whether Monday's shooting is connected to the same group. They also declined to rule out a link to a separate weekend incident, in which two locations of a Jewish-owned Toronto bakery were targeted in suspected hate-motivated attacks. A window at the Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue West location was struck by gunfire on Sunday morning, and a window was broken at the Steeles Avenue West location about 20 minutes later. The same task force is handling those cases with support from the Hate Crime Unit.
Mayor Olivia Chow described Monday's shooting as a brazen attack carried out in front of a marked police cruiser with its lights on.
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