At least 12 people have been injured in a shooting at a pub in Toronto that left “blood all over the floor” as three suspects remained on the run hours later.
Police said they received numerous emergency calls after three men fired randomly into the venue in the district of Scarborough in the east of the Canadian city on Friday night.
Officers are still hunting for three male suspects, Toronto Police said early on Saturday, following the incident near Progress Avenue and Corporate Drive at around 10.40pm local time. The force added that one suspect wearing a black balaclava was seen fleeing the scene in a silver car.
Police described shot pubgoers surrounded by broken glass and “blood all over the floor” when officers arrived on the scene, according to local media.
Superintendent Paul MacIntyre, unit commander of the organised crime enforcement unit, said purses and shoes were scattered around the pub, while food and drinks were still on the tables, reported the Toronto Star. “It’s kind of eerie,” he said.
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The senior officer said CCTV footage showed revelers enjoying a Friday night like any other at the bar, before gunshots were heard and people were seen falling to the floor and ducking for cover.
He added that blood was also found in the basement, where some people had hidden.
None of the victims – who range in age from their twenties to mid-fifties – suffered life-threatening injuries, police said in a post on X, adding that six of those injured have gunshot wounds. The remaining six victims were hurt by flying and broken glass.
During a news conference at the scene, Supt MacIntyre said: “One male was armed with what appears to be an assault rifle, the other two males were armed with handguns, and they walked into the bar, they produced their guns and they opened fire indiscriminately on the people sitting inside.”
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Police arrived at the scene and found a dozen people suffering from various injuries, with Supt MacIntyre calling the victims “extremely lucky” not to have suffered fatal injuries.
The motive was not immediately clear, Supt MacIntyre said, calling the shooting “a brazen and reckless act of violence that’s really shaken our community and the city itself”.
Supt MacIntyre said he and other officers were “horrified” by what they saw on a security video, adding: “These guys just looked at the crowd and opened fire.”
Officials warned the public to stay away from the area.
“It is troubling because of the magnitude of the shooting and the number of people hurt,” Mayor Olivia Chow said at a press conference Saturday morning.
Police are still looking to determine a motive for the shooting.
“Our investigation will tell us whether or not this pub was targeted for a particular reason,” MacIntyre said Saturday. “Maybe somebody was inside that somebody didn’t like. Maybe somebody had a beef with the business. We don’t know.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said the department had his “full support as they bring those responsible to justice.”
“My thoughts are with the victims and their families, and I’m praying that all those affected by this terrible shooting make a full recovery,” he added in a statement on X.
Toronto police are calling on the public to submit any information related to the shooting.
“We are urging anyone with information, video footage, or eyewitness accounts to come forward and assist in this investigation,” the department wrote in a statement on Saturday.
Employees and bystanders near the shooting expressed their shock at the sudden outburst of violence at the pub, which was celebrating its opening weekend.
“I’ve been here a couple of times for training and today was supposed to be my first shift,” pub employee Pooja Reddy told the Toronto Star. “It’s very shocking and I feel very bad for whatever happened. They were just sitting there eating. They did not deserve to have a fate like that.”
Lemaun Bailey-McIntosh, who was out shopping near the crime scene on Saturday, said it was a miracle that nobody got killed in the shooting.
“Pedestrians were walking by, [people were] having a good time on a Friday night, and just to see something like this, it’s terrible,” they told the CBC.
Friday’s gunfire came the same week the city of Toronto released statistics for the first two months of this year showing 17 shootings had taken place, a 26 percent decrease from the same period in 2024.
Over the last week, three people have been wounded in four shootings clustered at sites related to the towing industry.
