Greektown and BART Violence Results in Multiple Casualties

On Sunday night, July 22, 2018, a 10-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman were killed and 13 others were injured when a man armed with a handgun fired into restaurants and at patios in the Toronto’s popular Greektown neighborhood, authorities said.

Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders would not release the name of the two people killed, but said the girl is from the Greater Toronto Area, and the woman is from Toronto. An additional 13 men and women were injured.

The suspect, a 29-year-old man from Toronto, is also dead and the Special Investigations Unit is investigating an exchange of gunfire between police and the shooter. Monica Hudon, a spokesperson for the police watchdog, said Monday that the SIU will not release the suspected gunman’s name until they confirm his identity.

Police said the gunman moved down Danforth Avenue, starting near Logan Avenue, spraying bullets along the way. Danforth Avenue will be closed between Pape and Broadview Avenues until further notice.

The shooter, dressed in black, can be seen in these screen captures from CTV footage.

Greektown is a popular area for weekend activities.

Greektown – also known as Greektown on the Danforth, or more simply, The Danforth is within the city of Toronto. Named after Asa Danforth, an American contractor who designed Queen Street and Kingston Road — other streets in the city — the area is known for its architecture dating back to as early as 1910, and for its number of Greek restaurants and stores.

Prior to World War II, Toronto's nascent Greek population of approximately 3,000 was concentrated in the area bounded by Yonge Street, Carlton Street, Church Street and what is now Dundas Street East. It was this area that was the focus of the 1918 Toronto anti-Greek riot.

In the 1950s, the Danforth saw an influx of Italian immigrants followed by Greek immigrants in the 1960s - many of whom were fleeing political and economic unrest which culminated in the seizure of power by the Greek military junta of 1967–74. In the 1970s and 1980s the Danforth was regarded as the largest Greektown in North America.

Some parts of Greektown are still dominated by Canadians of Greek descent (Greek-Canadians). Most immigrated from Greece to Canada. According to the 2006 Census, Greeks constitute the most populous ethnic group in Ward 29 ("Toronto-Danforth"), where the Greektown is located, at 13% of the total population (5,755 of 27,415 inhabitants).

Also in Toronto on the same day...

A sign advertising holocaust education was spray painted with the word ACHTUNG outside the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Center in North York (Toronto, Canada) on Sunday, July 22, 2018, before the Greektown attack.

The Jewish community is expressing outrage after a sign featuring a Holocaust survivor was vandalized over the weekend.

The United Jewish Appeal Federation of Toronto (UJA) said in a tweet Sunday that a sign advertising holocaust education was spray painted with the word “Achtung” outside of the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Center in North York.

“Achtung,” a German word, translates to “attention,” and was often used in Jewish concentration camps — sometimes as a wake-up call — during the Nazi era.

This July 22, 2018 incident was viewed as a hate crime in Canada.

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Earlier in 2018...Twilight Language detailed a ramming event on Yonge Street. See here.

The Toronto van attack was a vehicle-ramming attack that occurred on April 23, 2018, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A man, alleged to be Alek Minassian, drove a rented van and sped through the North York City Center business district, deliberately targeting pedestrians, killing 10 and injuring 16, some critically. The attack started at the intersection of Yonge Street and Finch Avenue, and proceeded south along the sidewalks of Yonge Street to near Sheppard Avenue. The 25-year-old Minassian was arrested uninjured just south of the crime scene, after attempting to provoke a police officer to kill him. The arrest was made at 1:32 p.m., seven minutes after the first 9-1-1 call reporting the incident was made. The incident is the deadliest vehicle-ramming attack in Canadian history.

In 2017, a ramming incident happened in Alberta. The Edmonton attack was a stabbing and vehicle-ramming attack that occurred in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on September 30, 2017. Edmonton police constable Mike Chernyk was allegedly hit and stabbed by 30-year-old Abdulahi Sharif, who then struck four pedestrians with a rental truck during a police chase. All four injured survived and were hospitalized. The incident is currently being investigated as a terrorist attack, with police confirming the presence of an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant flag in the van that rammed the police officer. The main suspect, 30-year-old Abdulahi Hasan Sharif, is a Somali national and refugee.

On Wednesday, April 9, 2014, Toronto police responded to multiple 911 calls from an office building on Yonge Street near York Mills Ave. See more here.

In the 1970s, there appeared to be a serial killer who haunted the gay bars on Yonge Street. See here. 

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Photo of Nia Wilson published by the media.

In San Francisco, the hunt for a man suspected of fatally stabbing Nia Wilson an 18-year-old woman throat and injuring her sister July 22, 2018, Sunday evening stretched into Monday afternoon, with police scouring the area near Oakland’s MacArthur BART station and reviewing surveillance videos of the station and train car.

BART officials on Monday confirmed a “be on the lookout” alert for 27-year-old John Cowell. The suspect in the fatal stabbing is 5-foot-8 and weighs 190 pounds, and he has short, dark hair as well as a closely cropped beard and mustache, officials said. He is considered dangerous and BART has asked anyone who comes into contact with him to call 911.

Nicole Mikels’ train had just rolled into the MacArthur station Sunday evening when the quiet commute was interrupted by what she called “horrifying screams.” The sounds came from the direction of two young women Mikels had noticed when she boarded the train a few minutes earlier at the Rockridge station. One sister was “screaming for help,” Mikels said. “Her sister was bleeding profusely by the neck — her entire torso was covered in blood.”

“She said everything happened so fast,” Mikels said. “[That] it was a white male that had slit her sister’s throat.”

Despite the life-saving attempts, a short time later 18-year-old Nia Wilson was pronounced dead.

The seemingly random attack launched an overnight manhunt that continued early Monday morning, as police searched for a 5-foot-9 heavyset male in his 20s or 30s with short spiky hair.

Authorities on Sunday evening described the event as a double stabbing. Officials had no immediate update on the condition of Wilson’s sister Monday morning.

Ramming Event in Toronto

On Monday, April 23, 2018, a ramming event occurred in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Several fatalities appear to have occurred.

Police have arrested a suspect after a white Ryder van mounted the curb and struck numerous pedestrians in Toronto.

The incident happened on Yonge Street south of Finch Avenue, with several people being struck.

Late on Monday, it was announced 10 people have died.

Witness Alex Shaker, who was driving southbound at the time, says the van was travelling at high speed on the sidewalk. The van was also southbound.

“He started going down on the sidewalk and crumbling down people one by one,” Shaker told CTV News Channel on Monday afternoon.

Shaker said he saw the vehicle strike someone with a stroller.

“He just destroyed so many people’s lives,” he said. “Every single thing that got in his way.”

Photos posted online show multiple individuals on the ground.

Carol Roberts, who witnessed the aftermath, says she saw “a lot of people lying lifeless on the ground.”

“It was just so many bodies,” she told CTV News Channel.

Witness Phil Zullo, who was driving northbound, says he first noticed the commotion when he saw police taking down a male suspect.

Zullo says he continued north, where he saw “shoes and hats flown everywhere.”

The suspect was arrested beside the van on Poyntz Avenue off of Yonge, just south of Sheppard Avenue West. The van is marked as belonging to the rental company Ryder.

Video shared with CTV News shows the suspect pointing a small, dark object at police, with his back to the van. Police can be seen taking cover behind their vehicle and shouting at him to get down.

“Get down!” the officer is heard shouting.

“I have a gun in my pocket,” the suspect can be heard saying.

“Get down or you’ll be shot!” the officer says.

The camera turns away from the confrontation for approximately eight seconds, then looks back to show the suspect on the ground, face-down, with the officer cuffing him.

Another video recorded from a nearby building shows the moment missed in the previous video. The suspect can be seen walking out in the street with the object in his hand still pointed at the officer. After approximately five seconds he drops the weapon, throws out his arms and backs up to the curb.

Toronto's Alleged Serial Killer Was Mall Santa

Bruce McArthur, who is charged with five counts of murder and is alleged to have hidden some victims' remains in planters around Toronto, served as Santa Claus at Agincourt Mall in the Scarborough, Ontario neighborhood of the city. 

Arrested in January, Toronto police said on February 8, 2018, they’ve recovered the remains of at least six people from planters on a property connected to alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur.

The remains found on property McArthur used as storage in exchange for doing the landscaping, included some from one of the five men McArthur is already charged with killing, Andrew Kinsman.

McArthur was arrested Jan. 18 and charged with two counts of murder in connection with the disappearances of Kinsman and Selim Esen, two men last seen in what the media terms the “Gay Village” district of Toronto. Not long after that, he was charged with the murders of three more men and police said they were on a wide search for other possible victims. The suspected serial killer was a mall Santa. 

The news of McArthur's time as a "mall Santa" brought forth memories of John Wayne Gacy, Jr. (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994).

McArthur "was hired through an event management company who provides various forms of entertainers including Santa to many events throughout the (Greater Toronto area)," a statement from the mall said.

Thomas Donald Bruce McArthur (b. October 8, 1951) is an alleged Canadian serial killer. As of February 2018 the self-employed landscaper is charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of missing men from Church and Wellesley, Toronto's gay village.

Police have found human remains of several men in private gardens, where McArthur has worked as a landscape gardener. So far, the investigation has shown that he found many of his alleged victims through online dating apps for men who have sex with men, stating that he wanted to meet submissive men. His alleged victims were predominantly gay men of South Asian or Middle Eastern origin. 

McArthur was first charged on 18 January 2018 with the murder of 49-year-old Andrew Kinsman and presumed death of 44-year-old Selim Esen. Both men went missing in 2017. On 29 January 2018, Toronto police laid three more first-degree murder charges against McArthur related to the disappearances of Majeed Kayhan, 58, and Soroush Mahmudi, 50, as well as the death of Dean Lisowick, 43-44, who had never been reported missing.

On February 8, 2018, the Toronto police recovered the remains of at least six people at a home on Mallory Crescent, where McArthur stored some of his landscaping equipment. At least some of the remains have been identified as belonging to Andrew Kinsman. Human remains were also found in planters at a Leaside home. Police believe there are more victims. Police said they were combing through five properties, four in Toronto, one in Madoc, all related to McArthur. Source.

The name McArthur is Scottish. It is an Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Artair, a patronymic from the Gaelic form of the personal name Arthur. The name Arthur is an English name, from the Roman clan name Artorius, meaning "noble, courageous."

Artorius is thought by some to have a purely Latin derivation, translating the name as "plowman." Such an etymology seems unlikely as the Latin word for "plowman" was arātor, not *artor (in fact a gentilic name potentially derived from arātor, Arātrius [also an epithet of Jupiter], is attested in inscriptions from Aquileia, Altinum, Pola, and Montefalcone; compare, too the word arātōrius "fit for ploughing," used of oxen and fields).

"Gay Village's" Unsolved Serial Killer Cases

There is some speculation that Bruce McArthur alleged serial killing activity could have started in the 1970s, and old cases are being investigated. The following was published as an overview of those unsolved files, as they are similar to Toronto's current killings.

Feb. 18, 1975: Police attended the apartment of Arthur Harold Walkley, 52, in response to a 911 call at 3:50 a.m. that day. His roommate discovered his naked body, stabbed several times in the back and chest, though no knife was ever recovered by police. His wallets and credit cards were stolen during the attack on Borden St. near Bloor St. W. Walkley, a part-time University of Toronto lecturer, died shortly after arriving in hospital. Dec. 20, 1975: Frederick John Fontaine was 32 when he died. Fontaine was found in the washroom of the St. Charles Tavern, a former bar with a landmark clock tower, popular in the early days of Toronto’s Gay Village. Officers attended the scene about 9 p.m., and found the CBC technician suffering from blunt force trauma. He died several months later in hospital, on July 15, 1976. Feb. 11, 1976: Forty-two-year-old painter and decorator James Douglas Taylor was found beaten with a baseball bat in his North York apartment near Yonge St. and Sheppard Ave. He was also robbed. Neighbours told police at the time that a pickup truck was seen at the house, where he lived alone. Sept. 20, 1976: Police discovered the body of James Stewart Kennedy, a federal income tax employee, at 8 a.m. on a Monday. The 59-year-old was strangled with a bath towel and suffering from blunt force trauma in his Jarvis St. apartment. He was dead by the time police arrived. Jan. 25, 1977: Described in some media coverage as “shy and new on the gay scene,” 25-year-old Brian Dana Latocki, a financial bank analyst, was found tied to a bed in his apartment, strangled, and stabbed to death. Police responded to the scene on Erskine Ave., near Mt. Pleasant Rd. and Eglinton Ave. E., at 9:40 a.m. that day. The night before he was killed, he was last seen leaving the St. Charles Tavern. Sept. 20, 1978: Perhaps one of the most high-profile deaths was of club owner Alexander “Sandy” Romeo LeBlanc, 29. He was found at 7:20 p.m., stabbed more than 100 times from head to foot. “As police walked around the body, the carpet squished from the sound of absorbed blood, and bloody footprints led to an open window,” Robin Hardy wrote in 1979. Despite attempts to resuscitate him, LeBlanc was pronounced dead in his apartment on St. Joseph St.Nov. 28, 1978: Just after 2 p.m. that day, police responded to a “check address” call for a resident near Bathurst St. and St. Clair Ave. Inside an apartment, they found William Duncan Robinson, 25, dead from stab wounds. His sister made the call to police after he didn’t show up to work for two days. At the time, police believed he may have gone to a gay bar in the Yonge and College Sts. area, and returned home with the killer. A neighbour reported hearing a “strange hollow sound” coming from his apartment. Source.

h/t T.M. 

Separate Mass Stabbing Incidents Hit Two Superlative Sites

Mass stabbings hit two unique locations on April 9th. One is known for formerly having "the world's largest arboreal sign" and "the largest commercial gas well in the world." The other is still famed for being "the longest street in the world."

While mass shootings have been common in North America, mass stabbing events are more frequent in China & Japan (see here, here, here, and here).  A well-publicized American incident did occur in Texas in 2013.

Murrysville, Pennsylvania

Seven teens and one adult are being treated after a stabbing incident at a Pennsylvania high school and some of the injuries are "clearly life threatening," according to a doctor at Forbes Regional Hospital. The teens had stab wounds to their torsos, abdomen, chest and back areas, he said.

The stabbings occurred at the Franklin Regional Senior High School to youth with ages  ranging from 14 to 17.

A Disney Dreamworks movie, I Am Number Four, was filmed at the school in 2010. It was based on a book with the same name. The sequel to the book was called The Power of Six, writes the Newspaceman.

The suspect, a male student, was in custody after the stabbings at the school in Murrysville, about 15 miles east of downtown Pittsburgh. Update: The suspect in the Pennsylvania school stabbings is identified in court documents as Alex Hribal, 16. He has been charged as an adult.

Hribal's Facebook page is adorned with a picture of Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide nearly exactly 20 years ago. The social media profile includes a reference to Hitler. He allegedly lived on Sunflower Court in Murrysville, Pennsylvania.

The suspect was described as wielding two knives simultaneously during the attack.

The injured were admitted to Forbes Regional Hospital in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, with stab wounds.

"These are all very serious injuries," hospital spokesman Jesse Miller said in a telephone interview.

The first 911 call was received at 7:13 a.m. EDT. The attacks took place in several classrooms and hallways as the school day began. Zak Amsler, a 17-year-old junior at the school, said the attack occurred just before his first class was scheduled to begin.

"I saw a girl with blood running out of her sleeve," Amsler said as he waited to pick up his younger sister, a student at the nearby middle school. "It was pretty mind-blowing."

Stevens, the county official, noted that the scene had been contained. "The students that are here are safe," he told reporters.

The Haymaker Gas Well in Murrysville was the nation's first commercial natural gas well. For some time, it remained the largest commercial gas well in the world.
Since 1933, Murrysville has had a "tree sign" spelling out the word "Murrysville". The trees were landscaped to grow and form the letters by local Boy Scouts. The sign is situated on a large hill as one enters the Municipality from the Murrysville–Monroeville border, near U.S. Route 22. In 1947, the sign was featured in "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" as the world's largest arboreal sign. (It is no longer the world's largest, or even the largest in the country; "Luecke", near San Antonio, Texas, is much larger.) The "Y" in the Murrysville sign points to the Haymaker Gas Well. Source.

Toronto, Ontario

Just after 9:30 am ET also on Wednesday, April 9, 2014, Toronto police responded to multiple 911 calls from an office building on Yonge Street near York Mills Ave.

One man, apparently Asian, (shown here) was placed in custody after Toronto police say at least four people were stabbed (by scissors) at the building in the northern part of the city.

Police say the attack happened on the fifth floor of an office complex at 4110 Yonge St., near York Mills Avenue.

CBC News has confirmed that four people were taken to hospital with stab wounds.

A man and a woman in their 30s are among the people who were stabbed. The two suffered multiple, serious stab wounds, according to police, and are in critical condition in hospital. Two other males whose ages are not known were transported with serious wounds to a trauma centre.

Yonge Street (pronounced "young street") is a major arterial route connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes. It was formerly listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest street in the world at 1,896 km (1,178 mi). The construction of Yonge Street is designated an Event of National Historic Significance in Canada. Yonge Street was fundamental in the original planning and settlement of western Upper Canada in the 1790s, informing the basis of the concession roads in Ontario today. Long the southernmost leg of Highway 11, linking the capital with northern Ontario, Yonge Street has been referred to as "Main Street Ontario". A large part of the route follows an ancient well-established Aboriginal trail that linked the Lake Ontario waterfront to northern parts of the region. It was also the site of Canada's first subway line. Source.