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Jordan Heath-Rawlings
It’s already false enough to be a joke, but even if it weren’t, surely the past couple of weeks have put to bed the idea that Canada does not have the sort of random, violent attacks that leave innocent people dead in America. It can and does happen here. That much is increasingly blindingly obvious. Toronto police officer was shot and killed as part of a shooting rampage that took over the greater Toronto area yesterday afternoon. On a Monday afternoon, a series of tragic events unfolding in the GTH at the hands of what police say was an active shooter. It was one week ago Monday afternoon, VIP police reported via Twitter that an officer had been shot in Mississauga, just outside of Toronto. More tweets and communications from different police agencies in different areas around southern Ontario followed, eventually culminating in an Ontario wide emergency alert. In the wake of this attack that has now left three people plus the gunman dead, there are, of course, questions to answer. But because that gunman is dead, we once again have to wonder how many of those answers we’ll ever get? Or if we get them, how many police will eventually share? Why did he do it? How could this have been stopped before it started? How well did several police agencies coordinate in real time as the shooter traveled between three cities? And could they have done it better? Have caught him sooner?
I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is the big story. Wendy Gillis is a crime and police reporter at the Toronto Star. She and a team of journalists have spent the last week trying to get those answers. Hi, Wendy.
Wendy Gillis
Hello. Thanks for having me.
Jordan
No problem. I’m hoping that you can first just bring us back to September 12. We can do a detailed run through because the actual timeline of this event is pretty crazy. But maybe just for those outside of Toronto or Ontario. What happened that day?
Wendy Gillis
In summation, we had a really horrible thing happened on Monday, which is we had a multi city shooting that was quite chaotic. We had a fatal shooting of a police officer in a Tim Hortons in Mississauga, then had a violent carjacking, then had another shooting in Milton that left two people dead. And then we had the last shooting, which was in Hamilton, and that was of the gunman. And police say this is all by the same person. So this is one man acting alone, armed with a handgun, who created a lot of tragedy and a lot of chaos on Monday that I think has left many people shocked and so many people sort of reeling from this tragedy.
Jordan
For those unfamiliar with the area, just geographically speaking, how far does this stretch?
Wendy Gillis
Yeah, pretty far. Mississauga is outside of Toronto, as most people know. This started in Mississauga. It then went to Milton, so that’s even further west and then ultimately, it ended in Hamilton, a whole other city even further west than that. So it’s pretty far, all things considered. And just to give you a sense of how many police services this involves, ultimately there are five services involved because it happened in Peel region and then it moved over to Halton region, and then subsequently it ended in Hamilton, and then, of course, the gunmen traveled on the highways and that’s patrolled by the OPP. So there’s just a lot that’s going on and it gives you a sense of how big this thing was.
Jordan
One thing I’ll ask you about in a little bit, after we walk through it, is just how that many police agencies can coordinate in real time. But first, maybe tell us a little bit about the man police believe to have been behind all this. What do we know about Shawn Petry?
Wendy Gillis
Yeah, good question. Just to sum it up, we know a fair amount about his criminal history and then we don’t know a whole lot else. So we know that he’s 40 years old. As far as we know, he was acting alone on Monday. Police don’t know where he was living at the time. They think that he was living outside of his car. And we know that he hasn’t been in touch very much with family. He’s estranged from his family, we’ve heard. What we do know is that he had quite an extensive criminal record. It goes back about 20 years and it’s a long list of convictions. It’s assault, armed robbery, carrying, concealed weapon, careless storage of a firearm. So we know that there’s a history involving guns. What struck me a little bit is that his last conviction was in 2012, and so that’s ten years where we don’t have a good sense of exactly what he was up to. So still, this is a little bit of a mystery in terms of who he was and what he was trying to accomplish.
Jordan
Can you also tell us a little bit about the victims? Who were they? And I understand they were from many different walks of life.
Wendy Gillis
Yeah, first of all, we knew a lot about his first victim because quite rapidly news had spread that a police officer had been shot and killed. And I know I first started getting wind of it in under an hour after it had happened. And for me, it was really quite shocking because these things don’t happen, thankfully. Obviously it did and we need to take stock of that. But it’s quite alarming to have an officer that was killed on the job. So what we know is that Constable Andrew Hong was shot inside of Tim Hortons in Mississauga. He was shot at close range and within a couple of hours of that happening, we had police describing it as an ambush. He didn’t really have any chance. So we know that he was a husband, he had two teenagers, he had spent the bulk of his time with the Toronto police in the traffic unit, which was interesting for me. I often sort of hear about officers moving around a lot. He has dedicated his time, most part to the traffic unit. And there he kind of specialized in what they call motorcycle operations. And so that’s kind of taking part in motorcade or processions or political visits. And as it happened, on the day he was killed, he had been, in fact, instructing a course on how to do that. I wasn’t quite able to pin down exactly how tall he was, but people kept telling me he was like 6’4,6’5, big guy, gentle giant, kind of and a jokester. His family put out a statement calling him a bit of a practical joker. We also had a man named Shakeel Ashraf who was killed. He was similarly a father. He was 30 years old, he was a business owner, and he owned the auto body shop that was shot up. It was the second location of the shooting that had happened in Milton. I’m sure we’ll get to this, but there is a connection allegedly between the gunman and that auto body shop. We’re told that he had been an employee there and when he arrived, the gunman arrived. He shot and killed Shekeel Ashraf. He also shot and injured two other men. And I’m sad to report that one of those men who had been injured sadly passed away just over the weekend. And that was a man named Satwinder Singh, an international student from India, and by all accounts seemed like a wonderful person who was trying to start a life in Canada, bring his family over. And he’d been working at the auto body shop just part time to, I think, cover the bills. And he was seriously injured on Monday and as I said, died over the weekend. So just horrible. As a journalist, it’s never easy to cover these kinds of stories because you get those small details of who these people were and it’s just heartbreaking to think that this is how they came to their end.
Jordan
I’m going to ask you now to take us through what happened. I understand that you and a huge team of your colleagues at the Star put together a painstakingly detailed timeline of what happened during the Spree. So you mentioned. This began with Andrew Hong at Tim Hortons. What happened there? What do we know about what actually happened inside the shop?
Wendy Gillis
Yeah, good question. What was striking to me, I think, in terms of what we have started to learn kind of in the aftermath of this, is that we now know that the gunman allegedly had been outside of the Tim Hortons for upwards of 2 hours. 2 hours and 15 minutes. So he arrived around noon and the shooting was at 2:15. And so we know that there was motorcycle operations course that was taking place nearby. It was a police led thing. Peel Police, Toronto Police, York Regional Police. And Constable Hong had been instructing the course. And one of the sad details that will stick with me is that apparently he’d offered to buy some of his colleagues coffee so they break for lunch in that area. You know, we have these types of areas, they’re sort of ubiquitous all across Canada now where it’s sort of like a plaza of stores and restaurants and there’s a Tim Hortons there and everybody went their own separate ways. Constable Hong went inside the Tim Hortons and it was there that he was approached by the gunman and shot at close range. And so we know that the people that were inside the Tim Hortons understandably left. You can imagine the horrifying scene that that was. And we know that the police officers that had been nearby already for the course ran towards the Tim Hortons and found Consul Hong deceased at the scene. And so that started a whole response there centered at the Tim Hortons. Meanwhile, we know that the gunman across the street went across to the Walmart parking lot where he stole a black SUV and he shot the driver of that SUV. That person is still, as we understand, alive and recovering, underwent surgery, was shot in the abdomen and their car was stolen. So subsequent to that Petry, the gunman drives from Mississauga to Milton to MK Auto Repairs. And as I mentioned before, we have been told that that is a place that he worked somewhat recently, we’re hearing some time in the spring there about he had been fired for unprofessional behavior. We know that the police are looking into this and the connection there and whether or not there had been any threats or any sort of warnings about whether this could have been avoided in some way. But we know that he gets there and that we’re told there’s actually a little bit of time that he’s there and there’s a few moments to go by and that’s when Shakeel Ashraf returns and we’re told he’s been out sort of getting lunch, comes back and Petry opens fire there and shoots three people. So that’s Shakeel Ashraf and Satwinder Singh, who has now died, and then a third person who was injured there. And then of course, we then know that Petry leaves and drives towards Hamilton. And ultimately this is where the story ends, in Hamilton Cemetery, actually, where police are able to track him down and are in a shootout. Basically. We know from the Special Investigations Unit, which is the civilian police watchdog that’s now investigating his death, that he was involved in an exchange of gunfire in the cemetery and ultimately he was fatally shot. This is maybe surprising to some people, but it is protocol. After police shoot someone, they rush over to them, put handcuffs on still, and then start trying to give lifesaving measures. So we know that they started CPR, but he did die at the scene there. This is all taking place over the course of about 2 hours. So it all starts at about 2:15. Then we know that by about 4:30, he has been shot dead, but still, for hours after the fact, it was just a chaotic attempt to try to figure out kind of what had happened and put the pieces together of this really complicated story.
Jordan
I want to ask you about police communication with the public during this. And my experience is possibly anecdotal, but I know that as the story was unfolding, on that afternoon, I had seen a tweet announcing from the police service announcing that an officer was down. I didn’t kind of have a really good idea of what was going on. It seemed like that might be an isolated incident. And then later, I got an emergency alert on my phone, and I know there was some criticism around that alert as well. Have you guys been able to put together exactly which police service was conveying what to the public?
Wendy Gillis
Yeah, I mean, we went back and looked at the tweets that were coming out and tried to figure out what was known when, like I said at the top, this involves multiple different police services. And because it’s all happening so quickly, you can understand there was a little bit of a challenge in terms of seeing these two incidents as connected initially. What we do know is that first it’s Peel responding to this Mississauga shooting. And we know that they fairly rapidly put out a tweet talking about how there is someone who is armed and dangerous and driving a dark coloured vehicle. There’s initially some confusion about even the description of the gunman. Initially, he’s described, I believe, as white. And then it gets changed over to male, black. And then there’s sort of after the second shooting, it’s then Halton police, and they’re putting out tweets in the public with a little bit more information. Suspects fled the area. Black Jeep Cherokee, all caps, armed and dangerous. Do not approach. I’m seeing this in real time, too. Had just gotten some initial information that a police officer had been shot, and people were making the connection because of the Jeep’s license plate number. And we see that it’s the same. And so I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, this is a situation that’s still unfolding. This is serious. This is happening as we speak, kind of. And then I know that at some point, Peel police put out a more detailed description, male, black, thin build, saying that he’s wearing all black except for a yellow construction vest. And they put out a security image of him that we know actually was taken from that Tim Hortons, just because it had just happened in Mississauga. And then, of course, there’s the emergency alert that you got, Jordan, and I did too. I didn’t realize till after the fact that I had also gotten into what first went across Ontario, and it’s warning that there is an active shooter, armed and dangerous. And you did allude to the fact that there was definitely some questions raised and some criticism about that alert that went out. And of course, we’re having these much bigger conversations about how we use this tool, whether it’s for Amber alerts for missing children or, of course, in Nova Scotia, the lack of public warning for what was unfolding there in 2020. And I can see both sides of this. Like, the criticism of this was that there was pretty limited information. There wasn’t a whole lot about the model of car, the license plate wasn’t included, there wasn’t a description of the suspect. I think the criticism has been what was actionable about that. I think on the other side, it was sort of like time was of the essence and it was imperative that something get out. And I think a lot of us would say, like, some information is probably better than no information and at least got people kind of on their guard to be like, okay, something’s going on, I’m going to go try to go find out more, but in the meantime, I’m going to lock my door, or something like that. This should be part of a broader conversation about how we use these types of alerts. But certainly at 425, when the alert went out, there wasn’t a lot that was known yet. So you can kind of get a sense of the chaos that was unfolding internally as well as kind of across this region where there had been just three separate things that had gone on that actually were connected. Yeah, totally. And I mean, look, we’ve covered the Portapique inquiry on this show and just how badly things went there. So always inclined to be skeptical of the police, but at the same time, hindsight is 2020 in a situation like this where things are happening over a very short span of time.
Jordan
What I want to ask you, and maybe it’s too early for this, though, is there a policy or even just a regular protocol for something like this that does span, as you pointed out, like five separate jurisdictions? Like, who takes point on when we send an emergency alert? Or does each department kind of make up their own mind with that? And who’s the lead communicator on Twitter? Because I think what people were reacting to was the fact that some of the tweets out there had the suspects picture and the license plate and then the emergency alert followed those tweets without it.
Wendy Gillis
No, that’s a good question. I think this is yet another kind of example of like, okay, so we have a case study now of what happened here that we obviously need to take, because you’re right, Jordan. I mean, some of that information had already been released by one police service, and then to not see it in the larger alert was sort of surprising. I know that the OPP manages the alerts that go out for the province of Ontario, and certainly I’d like to know if they are doing a little bit of a review of this to see, like, okay, so how next time, can we use some of the information that’s already out there? Because Twitter really has taken the place of all right, so this is one of the first places that police services will now go to communicate information because it gets it out so rapidly, in part because the media is I know I subscribe to all kinds of tweets. When the police service puts something out, like, I get it on my phone right away and I will then retweet it or disseminate it. So it’s a hugely useful tool. And also we need to be making sure that there’s some coordination for these types of incidents that, as we’ve seen, can very quickly span multiple different jurisdictions. Thank you for walking us through everything we know about what happened so far.
Jordan
I want to ask if we know anything about why, and I know this is always a difficult question, but two, why is maybe the first is why did this begin with an attack on a police officer? And the second, you did mention that he had worked at MK Auto Repairs. Do we know anything about how that ended that would provide a motive for why he would come back and attack people at that place?
Wendy Gillis
I mean, good questions. We’re now at the weak point where it’s almost been a week since this happened, and we know a lot, and there’s still somewhere so we don’t know. There is, definitely. So within, I’d say, a day or two of this shooting, I started hearing from some of the police officials I was speaking with that this may have been a targeted attack on a police officer. And sure enough, by Thursday, we did have several chiefs of police saying the working theory right now, or at least from what they take from the evidence so far, there does seem to be an indication that Sean Petrie had been waiting for someone in uniform. He’s been waiting for a police officer. And what I think we can take from the two hour and 15 minutes that we know that he was there, that potentially he was waiting out for a police officer to walk in the door. We don’t know if he there were many questions that had been asked at a press conference last week about whether he had targeted Constable Hong specifically. And I think what we know as of now is that the police believe he was waiting for a police officer. Why? We don’t know that yet. We do know that after he shot Constable Hong, he made an attempt to disarm him. He tried to take his gun from him and wasn’t able to get past some of the mechanisms that make it hard for someone to just take it off their gun. There is conjecture certainly that perhaps he had been trying to get a second gun. That may have been part of the motivation for looking for a police officer. To get to your second question, I don’t know that we have enough information at this point to draw a lot of connections between just the fact that he had worked there and he went back there. Certainly it would suggest that there was something, some retribution or some motivation to go back there. Perhaps he’d been upset about something. No, but hopefully some of those answers will come, I don’t know, in the next few weeks as a little bit more is discovered about his past. But obviously there are just big questions about the why here. And that’s always the case with these things. It seems so senseless. And so we’re always yearning and searching for why, how did this happen and how can we stop it from happening again? That’s just human nature to ask those questions.
Jordan
The last thing I want to ask you is sort of about just what happens now. You kind of alluded to it. It’s something that we discussed last week in the wake of another one of these, the stabbing spree in Saskatchewan, when a suspect dies at the end of one of these in police custody. I think the worry a lot of people have and have pointed out is that there’s not really much of a mechanism for a lot of the deeper details of the investigation to become public because there’s not a trial. So I just want to know, first of all, are you concerned about that and how much do you think you will ever get from the police now that the suspect is dead?
Wendy Gillis
Yeah, these are really good questions and I think we need to be talking about them because we can, as the media, be demanding more information about this. So first of all, there are going to be bits of information that come out just by virtue of the processes that are in place now. So the Special Investigations Unit is now probing the shooting death of Sean Petrie. SIU is the civilian police watchdog that in Ontario investigates every time there’s a death or a serious injury involving police and they will put out detailed report on what happened here. We will get that report. And in recent years, they really have been providing more transparency around their investigations. And that can mean video, that can mean photos, and that usually is like a very detailed narrative of what transpired. Now their purview is only the death of Sean Petrie. So to the extent to which we will find out about shooting in Mississauga and then the shooting in Milton, I think that will be quite limited from the SIU because they will really only be looking at that one death. What I do know is that unfortunately, we have had similar situations. I know a few years ago when we were covering the damn force shooting, that was an incident where the SIU had been involved because the gunman there was shot and killed by police. And the Toronto police ended up putting out a big report on what happened there. And I think it was to kind of step in and say, we know that the public wants to know what happened in this case and deserve some answers, and because the person responsible has deceased, we’ll never get a trial. So here’s what we do know. And they did put out some information about the gunman there and really detailed accounting of what had happened that night and the response. So what I’m sort of hoping is that maybe Peele Police, which is sort of the lead police agency involved in this, they might consider doing something like that to get a little bit more of a public accounting of what actually happened. That being said, I know that we’ll be pushing as the start to keep covering this. We’ll want to be talking to more people. I think a big question mark is what’s been going on with Shawn Petry in the last ten years. As I alluded to like, that’s a little bit of a gap in terms of our knowledge, but certainly I think sometimes the lack of a trial can be a blessing. Like sometimes that means that the people involved can move on a little bit quicker, they don’t get dragged through a very lengthy justice process. But of course, it also means that there isn’t kind of the ending that can come with trial where there’s a guilty finding or someone gets put away in jail for a long time. That can help with closure. So, of course, without that, that’s not going to be possible. But at the same time, I think hopefully there’ll be some mechanism to get some answers and some closure. I don’t know, I’m not sure what justice looks like here. I guess just finding out a little bit more about why it happened.
Jordan
Wendy, thank you for this and thank you for your continued efforts to answer the why question in the months to come.
Wendy Gillis
Thank you very much for having me.
Jordan
That was the big story. For more big stories, including stories on random, violent attacks that many people would hope don’t happen in Canada, you can go to thebigstorypodcast CA. You can talk to us on Twitter at thebigstory FPN or via email. Hello at thebigstorypodcast CA. And as always, you can find this podcast. Wherever you get podcasts, you can rate, review, like subscribe, follow whatever language your favorite app uses. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.
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