1 dead, three others wounded after several gunmen opened fire during a suspected home invasion in suburban Toronto
Police have identified the man fatally shot in a violent home invasion in a Canadian suburb on Wednesday night.
Brampton police in eastern Ontario said on Sunday that they had identified the victim as Benjamin Sayles, 19, from Maple Ridge, a city about 55 miles west of Toronto. Police said the three other shooting victims included the alleged gunmen.
No further details were provided about the shooting at a home in Brampton.
S.K. Sung, a relative of Sayles, said he graduated from a Brampton high school in 2016. “He was a good kid, we loved him,” Sung said in a phone interview.
Sayles’ body was found after a knock on the door of a home and men opened fire, according to police.
The shooting occurred just hours after 17-year-old Nia Maisonneuve was killed in the city’s north end. Maisonneuve was on her way to high school when she was fatally shot by two people fleeing a car crash on the street near a school. Her slaying raised concerns about violence surrounding the popular high school in a commercial neighborhood that’s been growing rapidly.
Shaquille Fluker was among those protesting outside the school on Friday. “It’s pathetic,” Fluker said, speaking through tears. “We pay tax dollars and we pay money to [Toronto police] but they can’t even stop them from having a shootout. That’s the scariest thing to me.”
Canada has a lower rate of violent crime than the US.
An increasing number of suspects are turning to deadly violence during bloody robberies that officers see as copycat crimes. On Friday, a gunman shot three police officers in Alberta, leaving one in critical condition. Five people were arrested.