Ontario nightclubs, street festivals, roads prove dangerous and deadly over weekend

VANCOUVER — There was nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide in Ontario this weekend. Even if you avoided the Toronto street festivals and nightclubs where mass shootings occurred, and decided to go on a drive by your lonesome instead, it turns out safety was still hard to come by as several horrific automobile accidents took as many lives over the weekend as a spate of mass shootings..On a particularly eventful summer weekend in the Greater Toronto Area, a shooting at a crowded street festival in Toronto, another shooting outside of a nightclub hours later, and then several separate horrific crashes — one a massive pileup on Highway 401 and another showing a pedestrian being severed in half by a dump truck — left multiple people dead.On Saturday evening just after 8 p.m., gunfire erupted Saturday evening during the TD Salsa on St. Clair festival in Toronto, a popular Latino cultural celebration on St. Clair Avenue West that drew thousands of attendees.Toronto police said two individuals exchanged gunfire in the middle of the crowded event. Two people were killed and several others — reports indicate at least four to six — were injured by gunfire. Two firearms were recovered from the scene across multiple locations.No suspects have been identified, nor has any suspect description been provided despite Toronto police acknowledging the festival was attended by roughly 13,000 potential witnesses..Not far from that horrific scene and only a few hours removed from a media press conference where Toronto police chief Frank Barredo called Toronto “one of the safest cities in the world,” another shooting took place outside the Rebel nightclub in the city’s Port Lands.Just after 3 a.m. Sunday, Toronto police responded to reports of gunfire near Polson and Cherry streets. Three people suffered gunshot wounds in the incident. A 25-year-old “Brampton man” was arrested after allegedly opening fire, then stealing a rideshare vehicle with passengers still inside and fleeing the scene, striking a pedestrian in the process. The injured victims were treated at the scene and transported to hospital. Police say that investigation is similarly “ongoing,” with Omar Abdul Singateh scheduled for a bail hearing on Sunday..Those seeking an escape from the city might have just as randomly been caught in the eight vehicle accident that occurred on Highway 401 eastbound near Townline Road in Cambridge.According to a Sunday X post, Emergency crews responded and one person was airlifted by Air Ambulance to hospital. The cause of the collision remains under investigation..And if that scene wasn't horrific enough, there's another video going viral of a 64-year-old woman being severed in half by a dump truck in Ajax.Investigators say just before 4 p.m. Saturday, the truck was making a right-hand turn from Harwood Avenue South onto Hunt Street when it struck a woman. Police said “life-saving measures were performed” but she was pronounced dead at the scene. They added that the driver of the dump truck, who can be seen exiting the truck’s cab, then re-entering and then backing off of the woman in another viral video, remained at the scene.

Ontario nightclubs, street festivals, roads prove dangerous and deadly over weekend

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