

Joshua Freeman, CP24.com





Toronto police have identified the man who was allegedly pushed to his death at Bloor-Yonge Station as a 73-year-old Toronto resident.

Yosuke Hayahara was waiting for an eastbound train at the station Monday morning when police allege that a stranger shoved him into the path of an oncoming train in an unprovoked attack.

Hayahara was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

A suspect was taken into custody at street level shortly after the incident.

This morning, the man accused of pushing the senior appeared in a Toronto courtroom.

Wearing a white jumpsuit and handcuffs, the accused made a brief court appearance, looking calm and speaking in a mumble.

It was a far cry from Monday’s hectic scene at Bloor-Yonge Station.

Det. Rob North told reporters Tuesday that the entire interaction happened very quickly and apparently out of the blue.

“There was a very minor altercation or interaction between our deceased and our accused,” North said.

He added that there’s no indication that the two men spoke beforehand and the alleged push may have been their only interaction.

“At this time that’s sort of what we’re working on – a completely unprovoked attack on this gentleman,” North said.

Investigators are now focusing on reaching out to a handful of people who would have been very close by when the victim ended up on the tracks.

“We are looking for seven or eight witnesses who we believe had some very close interaction or close ties to our accused or our deceased. They would have seen what happened, based on some utterances or witness statements that we have,” North said. “We are appealing to those seven or eight individuals to come forward. I understand it’s a very traumatic incident they may have witnessed, however we would like them to come forward so we can interview them and get a narrative about what transpired.”

The suspect is known to police from a “minor interaction” in 2015, North said. However he would not elaborate on what that interaction was or say if there is any indication that mental health was a factor in Monday’s events at Bloor-Yonge Station.

John Reszetnik, 57, of Toronto has been charged with first-degree murder.

He has been remanded into custody until his next court appearance

TTC examining barriers

The shocking incident occurred on the eastbound platform of the station – one of the busiest subway hubs in the country – at around 10:20 a.m. and shut down service at the station for hours.

According to TTC spokesperson Brad Ross, occurrences of people being intentionally pushed in front of trains are extremely rare, with the last recorded case in Toronto having occurred at Dundas Station in 1997, more than 20 years ago.

Incidents of people taking their own lives by jumping onto the tracks are more frequent.

Still, the incident Monday has sparked renewed discussion about the possibility of installing barriers on subway platforms.

TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said a staff report on the matter is due in 2020, but the biggest obstacle remains cost.

“We know it’s expensive. It’s about a billion to a billion-and-a-half dollars is the last estimate. We’d need to retrofit all our stations,” Green said. “Some of the newer stations we could install them quite easily because they were built with that in mind. But the older stations would definitely need to be retrofitted. That’s a lot of work, but we need to look at all of the options.”

Mayor John Tory said Monday that he voted in favour of the forthcoming study back in 2015 and thinks the issue still needs to be considered, but he echoed Green’s concern about the cost.

“In the end this is a huge undertaking for us to do if we did it retroactive to all the subway stations the question arises as to how we’d pay for it,” Tory said.

However he said it nevertheless needs to be examined as an option that could save lives.

“When we’re losing the number of lives that we are, we owe it to the city, and its population and people who are troubled to really take a serious look at this.”