Toronto police say an 18-year-old man is facing multiple charges after two alleged hate-motivated assaults with a gel blaster imitation gun against members of the Jewish community, incidents condemned by the Prime Minister and Ontario Premier. <\/p>\n
Police say they were called to the area of Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue on April 30 after a suspect in a vehicle allegedly used a gel blaster, which shoots gel beads, at three \u201cvisibly identifiable\u201d Jewish community members while they were walking outside.<\/p>\n
Police say they responded to a report of another assault Thursday night when three people standing outside the Congregation Chasidei Bobov synagogue were also allegedly shot at with a gel blaster. <\/p>\n
They say one person was struck and had minor injuries, and both incidents are being investigated as suspected hate-motivated offences.<\/p>\n
Police say officers executed a search warrant at a home in Vaughan, Ont., on Friday and seized evidence including two imitation firearms.<\/p>\n
They say the suspect has been charged with four counts of assault with a weapon and two counts of possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose. <\/p>\n
Acting deputy police chief Joe Matthews said the alleged assaults are \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the weapons used were imitation firearms, the impacts are very real. These are criminal acts that we allege were meant to intimidate and cause fear,\u201d he said at a press conference on Friday.<\/p>\n
Premier Doug Ford said he was \u201cdisgusted\u201d by the incidents and added they will not be tolerated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expect that all those who are responsible will be punished to the full extent of the law,\u201d Ford said in a social media post.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Mark Carney called the replica firearm shooting \u201can abhorrent act of antisemitism,\u201d and said he\u2019s relieved that an arrest has been made. <\/p>\n
\u201cLaw enforcement agencies have my full support as they investigate, and as they work to bring justice for the victims and the wider Jewish community,\u201d Carney said in a social media post, adding that Canada is committed to \u201ccombating the scourge of antisemitism and hate in all of its forms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toronto police say an 18-year-old man is facing multiple charges after two alleged hate-motivated assaults with a gel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[164,224,238,214,212,239,17,211,230,231,227,213,210,235,171,234,143,222,249,215,216,229,225,226,219,240,220,244,245,247,242,246,94,243,217,142,233,113,232,241,223,236,48,237,228,221,218,248],"class_list":{"0":"post-37730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-foreign-news","26":"tag-globe-and-mail","27":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","29":"tag-government","30":"tag-life-news","31":"tag-lifestyle","32":"tag-local-news","33":"tag-manitoba","34":"tag-national-news","35":"tag-new-brunswick","36":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","37":"tag-northwest-territories","38":"tag-nova-scotia","39":"tag-nunavut","40":"tag-ontario","41":"tag-pei","42":"tag-photos","43":"tag-political-news","44":"tag-political-opinion","45":"tag-politics","46":"tag-politics-news","47":"tag-quebec","48":"tag-sports-news","49":"tag-technology","50":"tag-toronto","51":"tag-travel","52":"tag-trudeau","53":"tag-us-news","54":"tag-world-news","55":"tag-yukon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}