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Shootings in the city over a holiday weekend earlier this month<\/a>\u00a0led to Mayor Tory saying he was working to get more police patrolling the streets.<\/p>\n Emergency services were called out just after 22:00 (02:00 GMT Monday). The site of the attack is a piazza with a fountain that is popular with local people and was busy at the time, the Toronto Globe and Mail writes.<\/p>\n A number of people were reportedly hurt in a cafe called the Demetres, while others were hit in the street.<\/p>\n One victim’s death was reported soon after the attack, with the second death announced on Monday morning.<\/p>\n Andrew Mantzios had been drinking coffee with friends by the fountain when he heard shots and turned around to see the gunman coming towards his group.<\/p>\n “He had this horrible expression on his face,” Mr Mantzios was quoted as saying by the paper.<\/p>\n The gunman fired at a crowd of people waiting to cross the street, he said.<\/p>\n “And then a lady tried to run and she fell down. He turned around and shot her point blank, two or three times.”<\/p>\n Mr Mantzios and his friends dropped to the ground for cover and watched as the attacker criss-crossed the avenue, shooting into businesses.<\/p>\n Other witnesses said he heard volleys of shots, with pauses in between.<\/p>\n “It would shoot, there’d be a pause, we heard more shooting, and then a pause and then more shooting,” John Tulloch, who was walking on the avenue with his brother at the time, told the paper.<\/p>\n “There must’ve been 20, 30 shots, altogether. It was a lot. We just ran. People weren’t yelling but I think everyone was concerned.<\/p>\n “It just seemed very surreal, almost like it wasn’t really happening. But everyone was sort of moving and going away. It was hard to believe it was real.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A driver, Jim Melis, told the paper that a white man wearing a black cap and a bandana had fired shots through a cafe window.<\/p>\n The gunman had run out in front of his car, crossing the street, before pulling out his gun, he said.<\/p>\n Jody Steinhauer told CBC News she had been with her family in a restaurant in the area when she heard what sounded like 10 to 15 blasts of firecrackers.<\/p>\n “We started to hear people scream out front,” she said.<\/p>\n Paramedics could be seen performing CPR on the injured around the piazza afterwards, the Globe and Mail reports.<\/p>\n After police sealed off the scene of the attack, upturned coffee cups could be seen being used behind the ticker tape to mark evidence.<\/p>\n Toronto police said the gunman had been found dead on Danforth Avenue. It is unclear whether he was shot by police or killed himself.<\/p>\n Jessica Young, an employee at the Second Cup cafe, said she had seen the gunman’s face before he fired through the window.<\/p>\n “I look to my side and see the shooter through the window,”<\/a>\u00a0she told the Toronto Star newspaper.<\/p>\n “He sees me, or he sees my co-worker or someone, and points the gun and shoots through the window. He was probably no taller than me, wearing a black baseball cap, dark clothes. He had light skin. I think he had short facial hair. That’s all I could make out.”<\/p>\n Nobody was hurt in her cafe, she added.<\/p>\n Mayor Tory said the attack was “evidence of a gun problem” in the city.<\/p>\n “Guns are too readily available to too many people,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n Police data show\u00a0the number of shootings in Toronto more than doubled between 2014 and 2017 – from 177 to 395.<\/a><\/p>\n While it is not known how the Greektown gunman obtained his weapon, there has long been pressure to tighten gun control in the country.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ruling Liberal party wants tougher background checks, including screening people with a history of violence.<\/p>\n Gun control has often sparked divisive debates in Canada, which has a large rural population where guns are widely owned and used.<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What happened?<\/h2>\n
![\"BBC](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/CC51\/production\/_102650325_toronto_shootingv2_640-nc.png\")
<\/span><\/figure>\nWhat do we know of the attacker?<\/h2>\n
Is Toronto known for gun violence?<\/h2>\n