The Toronto Police Service has appealed to the public to help identify a blue SUV, which a suspect allegedly drove on April 30 while shooting a “replica” gun at Jewish people.
“This investigation is being treated as a suspected hate-motivated offence,” the department stated.
Police described the weapon as an “Orbeez-type gun,” meaning one that shoots gel beads. Such blasters are often used in outdoor “shooting” sports such as “gelballing” – an alternative to paintballing.
The victims, who were “visibly identifiable members of the Jewish community,” had “minor injuries”, the police service said.
Several synagogues and Jewish schools are located within a few blocks of the site of the incident.
“On the streets of Canada’s most diverse city, Canadians are assaulted and shot at for being visibly Jewish,” stated the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA.
“Our country is facing a wave of violent extremism and radicalisation – one that threatens more than a single community. It endangers the personal safety and democratic values of all Canadians,” CIJA said. “Confronting these forces requires everyone to stand up and demand action before we face the kind of loss of life seen in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.”
On Friday, the Toronto Police Service said that it had brought new hate crime and riot charges against some of the six people it arrested on November 5 after rioters disrupted a private, pro-Israel event.
A week ago, the York Regional Police in Ontario said that it was investigating what it called a “hate/bias-motivated incident” that day at Sephardic Kehila Centre in the city of Vaughan.
The police department’s 2024 annual report on hate crime data, which it released last May, found that 40 per cent of all hate crimes in Toronto in 2024 and 81 per cent of all such religiously motivated hate crimes targeted Jews, even though just 3.6 per cent of Torontonians self-identify as Jews.
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