A driver ploughed his white Ryder rental van into a crowd in Toronto on Monday, killing 10 people and injuring 15 along a stretch of sidewalk thronged with pedestrians. Toronto Police arrested Alek Minassian for the attack which they said "definitely looked deliberate."
A driver ploughed his white Ryder rental van into a crowd in Toronto on Monday, killing 10 people and injuring 15 along a stretch of sidewalk thronged with pedestrians. Toronto Police arrested Alek Minassian for the attack which they said "definitely looked deliberate."
Although the attack had the hallmarks of recent deadly vehicle assaults by Islamic State supporters in the United States and Europe, federal officials said it did not represent a larger threat to national security.
Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders identified the suspect as Alek Minassian, 25, who he said had not previously been known to authorities. Police, who quickly arrested Minassian, do not know his motives. He was arrested 26 minutes after he allegedly drove his rental van into the crowd in the north end of Toronto, sending bodies flying.
Here is what we know about Alek Minassian, the suspect arrested in Toronto van attack:
1. Minassian attended a high school program for students with special needs.
2. Shereen Chami said Minassian was part of a program at Thornlea Secondary School, in Toronto's northern suburbs, for high school students with special needs, attending a mix of mainstream and separate classes.
3. She said her former classmate was not violent. He wasn't a social person, but from what I remember he was absolutely harmless."
4. Chami remembers him walking the halls with his hands together and his head down, and making meowing noises.
5. Two other classmates said they attended classes for students with special needs alongside Minassian.
6. Special needs is a blanket term used in the Canadian education system that covers learning and behavioral difficulties as well as physical disabilities.
7. Police said Minassian was not previously known to them and his motives were still unknown. Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders said the driver's actions "definitely looked deliberate".
8. Minassian's Facebook page could not be accessed through the social networking site. A bare-bones version available through the Internet Archive said he attended Seneca College from 2011 to April 2018, graduated from Thornlea secondary school in 2011 and listed software development under professional skills.
9. A September 2013 blog post said he had started to work at Seneca College's Centre for Development of Open Technology. He posted about his progress developing software there until March 2014.
10. Google's Android store offers a parking app developed by someone named Alek Minassian.
(With Reuters inputs)
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 "Emergency officials cover a body with a tarp at the scene of an incident where a van struck multiple people in Toronto")
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