Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow says the city needs to work harder to keep guns out of the hands of teenagers following a deadly exchange of gunfire between Toronto police and a 16-year-old boy.
“It’s 16-year-old. They don’t need a gun,” Chow said while speaking to reporters ahead of a city council meeting on Wednesday morning.
“And where are these guns coming from? A lot of them are American guns, so we have to double our efforts in keeping young people off gang activities… and keep guns out of their hands… keep guns out of Toronto.”
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) said Toronto police pulled a vehicle over in North York on Sunday for a routine traffic stop. They said the reason was because the vehicle was missing its front licence plate.
A total of six people were in the vehicle when police pulled it over, the SIU said.
Police body camera footage obtained by CTV News Toronto appears to show one of the responding officers asking a young woman seated in the back of the car whether one of the passengers was her boyfriend.
The officer can then be seen pulling the latch to the front passenger seat and folding the seat forward to allow the occupants seated in the back of the car to step out.
A young woman exits the vehicle first as the officer says “sorry, sorry, my bad.”
Soon after, a male, seated in the back, appears to lurch forward, pull out a gun, and fire toward the officer. The officer can be seen immediately backing away from the car before firing multiple rounds at the vehicle while shouting “gun, gun, gun.”
“It’s a terrible situation. We have to give young people more opportunities, more hope, employment... so they don’t go and join gangs to get a sense of belonging,” Chow added in her remarks.
The province’s police watchdog confirmed the 16-year-old died in hospital on Tuesday.
The SIU and Toronto police said the responding officers were not injured in the exchange.
Toronto police told CP24 on Tuesday the five other occupants of the vehicle, aged between 16 and 20 years old, are from Toronto or Brampton. They added that they were all arrested and face numerous charges. One of the youths was also charged with failure to comply with a release order.
None of the charges have been tested in court.
“The TPA continues to support our members who were involved in this tragic incident,” the Toronto Police Association (TPA) said in a statement to CP24. “There is little we can say given the ongoing SIU investigation. However, we can say that every use of force incident is an interaction between human beings, and they deeply impact our members.
“No police officer goes to work wanting to use force, let alone fire their weapon,” the TPA added.
With files from CP24’s Codi Wilson and CTV News Toronto’s Alex Arsenych
