This morning at 8:10AM, a gunman had shot a woman in the head across the street from my work. He then took a woman hostage and held a sawed off shot gun to her head. A police sniper working for the Emergency Task Force (ETF), which is basically the equivalent to the SWAT team in the US fatally shot the man after 30 minutes of negotiation failed.
When I was travelling to work, I didn’t know what was going on, but I did see an Ambulance racing to the scene at about 8:40AM, and I could see the crowds of people in the distance. A co-worker got off the train at Union station and walked up to the crowd of people to see what was going on. He could see the man holding a gun to the woman’s head. The police still hadn’t arrived yet, but they pulled up shortly thereafter, and he said there was a cop about 30 feet away from the gunman aiming his gun at him. He then proceeded to go to work, and 30 minutes later, the gunman was killed.
Another person I spoke to today was driving in the area as the cops were racing up, and he said the cops pulled a U-Turn just like in the movies, he cranked the wheel, tires squeeling, and raced to the scene. He didn’t know what was going on, but we all heard after what had happened.
It’s pretty crazy that this happened so close. These aren’t things you expect would happen in the Financial district in Toronto. Apparantly the woman who was shot by the gunman was his wife. It sounds like she will survive, and thankfully the woman that was taken hostage was unharmed.