Police in Toronto, Canada, shot and killed a man who was walking armed with a rifle through a neighborhood of the city on Thursday afternoon, an incident that caused the preventive closure of five nearby schools, local officials reported.
Officers said they were responding to a report of a gunman in the area who was shot after the man confronted them, Toronto Police Chief James Ramer said at a news conference. press.
Through Twitter, the police reported that the officers fired, and that the suspect, described as a man of 20 years, was injured and later died. The subject has not been identified and the investigation remains ongoing, authorities said.
The place where the police shot the armed man is about 130 of the William G. Davis Junior Public School, which was one of the five neighboring educational institutions to temporarily close its doors. All schools reopened a couple of hours later, according to the Toronto District School Board.
This incident occurred two days after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where a teenager from 18 years old, identified as Salvador Ramos, killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.
“I certainly understand the trauma and how traumatic it must have been for the staff, students and parents, given recent events that have occurred in the United States“added Ramer.
Toronto police blocked some 300 meters of road near the scene while special investigation officers conducted their investigation, a witness told Reuters.
Meanwhile, the Toronto police still do not have the details of the incident, so Ramer admitted that he prefers “not to speculate and suggest that it is something similar to what is happening in the United States“.
The firearm homicide rate in Canada is 0.5 for every 100,000 inhabitants, a figure that is well below the rate in the United States, which is 4.12, according to an analysis by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington made in 2021.