A five-year-old girl was struck by gunfire when a man fired two handguns at a group of people sitting on an apartment patio outside a Weston highrise.
Witnesses saw the gunman approach the main-floor apartment just before 8 p.m. and fire several shots as people dove for cover at the Bellevue Cres. building, off Weston Rd. near Lawrence Ave. W.
Dozens of people sitting in the front courtyard of the building watched as the shooter fled west into a nearby ravine along the Humber River.
Moments later, the limp and unconscious 5-year-old girl was carried by family members to a car and taken to nearby Humber River Regional Hospital.
There, she was stabilized before being transferred to the Hospital for Sick Children.
An officer at the scene said it appeared a bullet had entered her chest and exited her back. Her injuries are not life-threatening, police said.
At 9:20 p.m. an ambulance, sirens wailing, rushed into the hospital’s emergency bay. Three paramedics emerged, wheeling a small girl into the emergency department. The girl, who was receiving oxygen and had an intravenous line into her arm, appeared to be unconscious.
“I can’t talk to anyone right now,” said the girl’s sobbing grandmother. “Her name is Tania Reynolds,” said the women as tears rolled down her cheeks and she hurried into the hospital’s emergency department.
Police officers following the ambulance told the Star her mother would be arriving soon.
Police arrested a suspect in the ravine about 30 minutes after the shooting. He had run into the Humber River and became stranded on a small island.
A young man also seen limping away from the scene may have been shot in the back of the leg.
The shooting is most recent violence in Toronto Police’s 12 Division, an area some say is caught in the middle of a gang war. The district has had seven fatal shootings this year and has clocked close to 20 other shootings and more than 40 gun seizures since New Year’s Day.
