

Paul Johnston, CP24.com





One man is dead following a shooting near Yonge and Bloor streets Wednesday night, Toronto police have confirmed.

It happened in front of two coffee shops on Yonge Street, just north of Bloor Street, shortly after 8 p.m.

The age of the victim, who was rushed to hospital without vital signs, was not immediately known.

According to a friend of the victim, he was shot after getting into an altercation with a group while outside for a cigarette.

“He turned around to go in, and they shot him five times in the back,” the woman, who did not provide her name, said.

“He dropped right away.”

She said she gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before emergency personnel arrived.

“The guy didn’t deserve that – he just had a kid man,” the woman said. “Nobody tried to stop anybody […] nobody did anything. They just stood there.”

“I heard five loud bangs,” Eamonn O’Hanlon, who was a short distance away at the time of the shooting, told CP24 at the scene. “Right away I thought that is not a car backfiring.”

Paramedics arrived on the scene shortly after.

“Right away, they were pumping that lad’s chest pretty seriously,” he said.

“The strange thing was there was no screaming, there was no shouting, there was no running away – people were just gathering around in front of him and in front of the paramedics that were working on him.”

Police are currently searching for three suspects in connection with the shooting.

All three are described as white males. A preliminary description of the suspects provided by police said that one was last seen wearing a black jacket, another a baby blue jacket, and the third male was wearing a white jacket.

According to police, someone was arrested in the area shortly after the shooting, although it was not immediately clear if the arrest was in connection with the incident.

Yonge Street is currently closed between Bloor and Cumberland streets as police investigate.

Anyone with information is asked to contact homicide investigators at 416-808-7400.