More than a day after gunfire ripped through a Toronto street festival, sending an estimated 13,000 attendees running for shelter, police in the city say they’ve made no arrests and have no suspect information.
It was just after 8 p.m. on Saturday when gunshots rang out in the middle of the Salsa on St. Clair festival, leaving two people dead and four others with injuries.
Police initially feared the scene was an active shooter, but concluded it was “an exchange of gunfire” in the middle of the crowd by two people “targeting each other.”
Speaking at the scene on Saturday night, Toronto police Deputy Chief Frank Barredo said the scene was fast-moving and chaotic when officers arrived.
“There were people that were injured, there were people that were down,” he said. “It was a very active and chaotic scene.”
Barredo said it was “difficult to say with certainty” what happened, but that he believed officers were looking for two suspects.
But almost two days later, it appears the search is still ongoing with no suspects or arrests to announce.
“At this time, no arrests have been made and we have no suspect information to share in relation to the shooting at the Salsa on St. Clair festival,” a Toronto police spokesperson said on Monday morning.
“We will keep the media and the public informed should that change.”
Meanwhile, residents and businesses on St. Clair Avenue are starting the new week under the shadow of the shooting.
Edward Ambrosies, who works at Parkers on St. Clair West, said he’d been shutting down the store when the violence erupted.
“We didn’t have an issue this particular year. I was putting up my awning and all of a sudden, people just started running, the incident happened there, but people started coming this way,” he told Global News.
“We literally had a shop full of people.”
Dustin Parchment, who runs the Teknique Toronto studio in the area, said he had felt concerned at the festival all day.
Salsa on St. Clair was cancelled on Sunday as police shut down three separate crime scenes for further analysis.
— with files from The Canadian Press
Based on reporting by Global News.