{"id":91687,"date":"2026-06-17T03:19:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/91687\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T03:19:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:19:18","slug":"mother-of-slain-toronto-police-officer-says-losing-her-son-is-hardest-thing-in-the-world-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/91687\/","title":{"rendered":"Mother of slain Toronto police officer says losing her son is ‘hardest thing in the world’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mother of a Toronto police officer fatally shot on the job says losing her son is the “hardest thing in the world” and is urging residents of the city to support the police.<\/p>\n

Linda Pinizzotto said Marc Pinizzotto, 43, was a middle child, one of three boys in a close-knit family. Despite the dangers, his mother said she supported his decision to be a police officer.<\/p>\n

Const. Pinizzotto, a husband and father of two children, died on June 11 after being shot in a fourth-floor apartment while carrying out a search warrant in the area of Black Creek and Trethewey Drive.<\/p>\n

Officers were conducting an investigation into several shootings, including one at the U.S. Consulate in March, at the time. The 43-year-old, who had worked for the Toronto police for 18 years, was a member of its emergency task force. His mother said he was first through the door.<\/p>\n

“He wanted to make a difference. He chose a life to make a difference,” Pinizzotto told CBC host Dwight Drummond in an interview Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“It is the hardest thing in the world to lose your son, or your daughter, or any family member for that matter. That’s why we have to take this love and we need to spread the love. Do good things, be out there helping people, get involved, just work together,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Our family is going to make a plea to the general public. Please support our police.”<\/p>\n

‘What do you mean he’s shot?’<\/p>\n

Pinizzotto said her husband woke her when he got the news that their son had been shot. They didn’t know he had died until they got to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.<\/p>\n

“We were traumatized. We were just like, ‘He’s shot? What do you mean he’s shot? How could he be shot?'” she said.<\/p>\n

On the way to the hospital, she and her husband were “fighting the traffic and wondering what was going on, hoping to God that everything was okay,” she said.<\/p>\n

“When we got there, all of the police were lined up everywhere. So we entered into the building, they brought us to a special room and the captain came in and gave us this horrible, devastating, devastating news.”<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0041\"<\/p>\n

Linda Pinizzotto shows a photo of herself and her son, Const. Marc Pinizzotto, who died June 11 after being shot on the job. (Michael Aitkens\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Pinizzotto said her son was close to his brothers \u2014 and close in age too. “It was chaos” in the house when they were growing up, she recalled.<\/p>\n

Marc liked to make jokes and loved children and animals, she said.<\/p>\n

All three of her sons played hockey, she said. Marc was the captain of the Oakville Blades, an ice hockey team in the Ontario Junior Hockey League. His youngest brother played in the NHL for the Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks, while his older brother played professional hockey in Germany. Marc later joined him there. After Marc came back to Canada, he decided to be a police officer.<\/p>\n

His death has been very hard on his brothers, she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s so devastating. They’re so close. I mean, as a mom, you teach your children to have each other’s back. You teach them that way … You teach them to be supportive of everything,” she said.<\/p>\n

‘Number one dad’<\/p>\n

Marc was a “number one dad” to his kids, she said. With his loss, his family is now trying to make his children feel supported.<\/p>\n

“The stronger the support, it takes away a lot of the hardships of the reality of it. We remain strong to teach them to be strong.”<\/p>\n

As a police officer, Marc developed a “wonderful camaraderie and brotherhood” with other officers, his mother said. He was kind of person that “you meet him and you like him,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Investigators<\/p>\n

Investigators are shown here at the scene where Const. Marc Pinizzotto was fatally shot in Toronto on June 11, 2026. (Arlyn McAdorey\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

To honour his legacy, she plans to set up the Marc Pinizzotto Foundation.<\/p>\n

“The reality of it is that Marc gave his life. He was determined to be the best he could be and do his job at maximum efficiency,” she said.<\/p>\n

Funeral to be held Wednesday, June 24<\/p>\n

Police have said Nicholas Bennett, 19, will be charged with first-degree murder in Const. Pinizzotto’s death. Bennett was shot several times in an exchange of gunfire and remains in custody in hospital.<\/p>\n

Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit is investigating the circumstances that led to Bennett’s shooting and Pinizzotto’s death. The SIU says Bennett remains in critical condition.<\/p>\n

Zara Jabbi, 19, a second suspect, is still outstanding. Police say Jabbi is wanted in the consulate shooting and should be considered armed and dangerous.<\/p>\n

A funeral service will be held on Wednesday, June 24 at 1 p.m., at the Toronto Congress Centre in Etobicoke for Pinizzotto.<\/p>\n

The funeral will be limited to communities close to the family, police services and emergency service personnel. Members of the public will be allowed to watch the funeral procession as it travels from the Kane-Jerrett Funeral Home to the Toronto Congress Centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mother of a Toronto police officer fatally shot on the job says losing her son is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[263,34626,34624,32879,33281,34625,4201,48,3100,1239],"class_list":["post-91687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-hardest-thing-in-the-world","tag-linda-pinizzotto","tag-marc-pinizzotto","tag-nicholas-bennett","tag-ontario-junior-hockey-league","tag-police-officer","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-police","tag-vancouver-canucks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91687","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=91687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}