Ten suspects arrested, linked to Scarborough pub mass shooting

Toronto police have arrested ten people in connection with “five separate shooting incidents,” including a March mass shooting at a Scarborough pub.

Source: Toronto Police Service

Toronto police have arrested ten people in connection with “five separate shooting incidents,” including a March mass shooting at a Scarborough pub.

Investigators announced Wednesday that 203 charges had been laid—including 24 counts of attempted murder—against the ten individuals alleged to be involved in multiple gun-related crimes, including at least one mass shooting.

They also announced the seizure of four firearms, including two that police believe were used in the mass shooting of a Scarborough pub during its opening weekend.

On March 7, the pub—located across the street from the Scarborough Town Centre in what was formerly a Baton Rouge Grillhouse and Bar location—was celebrating its grand opening when two men armed with handguns and a third armed with an assault rifle opened fire on the pub around 10:40 p.m.

“They walked into the bar. They produced their guns, and they opened fire indiscriminately on the people sitting inside the bar,” Toronto Police Supt. Paul MacIntyre explained.

Food abandoned at tables, scattered shoes and handbags, shattered glass walls and “blood all over the floor”—that’s the visual Toronto police described as they walked through an “eerie” crime scene at a Scarborough pub in the morning hours of March 7.

Six people were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds, while six were injured by broken or flying glass, said Paul MacIntyre, a police superintendent with the organized crime enforcement unit.

“When officers arrived on scene, there were some people laying on the floor,” MacIntyre said. “There were others sitting in the booth or the chairs — sitting where they’d been shot.”

“I can tell you, this was a brazen and reckless act of violence that’s really shaken our community and the city itself,” he continued.

MacIntyre mentioned he and other officers were “horrified” by the video captured of the shooting, which was recently released by police.

“These guys just looked at the crowd and opened fire. It was horrible,” he said, describing the scene. “Only by the grace of God,” MacIntyre added, were there no fatalities.

Following the shooting on March 7, where nine people were shot—some sustaining life-altering injuries—a dedicated investigative team was put on the case, according to MacIntyre.

As the investigation progressed, “connections were made between the mass shooting and a robbery in Mississauga and several other previously unsolved shooting and firearm discharge incidents in Toronto,” city police said in their Wednesday morning statement.

“This was a terrifying series of events for the victims and for our city – a group of individuals opening fire in public spaces, seemingly without hesitation,” said MacIntyre.

While MacIntyre thanked law enforcement partners for their work and celebrated the arrests as a success, the police’s statement acknowledged that the “investigation remains ongoing.”