The Toronto Police Service is investigating a fatal stabbing in the city’s east end that left a 27-year-old man dead.
Police said in a release that officers were called to the area of Gamble Avenue and Donlands Avenue at approximately 9:35 p.m. on Wednesday for reports of unknown trouble.
Investigators said an altercation was heard behind a low-rise residential building on a nearby residential street.
Officers found the victim suffering from stab wounds and without vital signs. Despite life-saving efforts by paramedics, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
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The victim has been identified as 27-year-old Ahmed Hassan Asif. He did not live in the immediate area, according to police.
Det. Sgt. Sajeev Nair described the victim as a “hard-working young man,” an auto mechanic who was “very much loved by family and nieces.”
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Police said the suspect fled the area before their arrival and has not yet been found.
A white vehicle believed to be involved has been seized by forensic investigators, and officers are canvassing the neighbourhood for witnesses and surveillance footage.
Police also confirmed a vehicle involved in a collision within the taped-off area is part of the broader investigation, though its connection to the altercation has not been confirmed.
“We are coming for you.… Contact a lawyer and turn yourself in. We are going to catch you,” Nair said.
The killing marks Toronto’s fifth homicide of 2026.
A 29-year-old Oshawa, Ont., man has been charged in a Markham hit and run that left a pedestrian seriously injured, with police alleging he later tried to conceal the vehicle.
In an updated release, York Police say the collision happened on Feb. 19 at around 3:41 p.m. near Denison Street and Featherstone Avenue.
Investigators allege the victim was struck and carried on the hood of the vehicle before being found about 50 metres east of the intersection.
She was taken to a trauma centre, where she remains in serious condition.
On March 20, officers arrested Nathan Kumar Persaud, 29, of Oshawa.
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Police say three search warrants were executed at residences in Richmond Hill, Oshawa and Toronto.
Investigators seized the suspect vehicle as well as a quantity of controlled substances.
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Persaud is facing multiple charges, including dangerous operation causing bodily harm, failure to stop after an accident resulting in bodily harm, and drug trafficking-related offences.
Investigators allege the suspect took steps to conceal his identity and repair damage to the vehicle.
Police are appealing to anyone who may have sold parts to the suspect or unknowingly assisted with repairs to come forward.
They are also reminding the public that helping conceal or repair a vehicle to avoid detection may result in charges as an accessory after the fact.
Anyone with information or dashcam footage is asked to contact York police or Crime Stoppers anonymously.
Ontario hit-and-run driver tries to conceal license plate
More than two years after a Toronto father vanished without a trace, his sister is speaking out, pleading for answers as police continue to investigate his disappearance as a homicide.
Taron Stepanyan, 40, was last seen leaving his apartment building near Chichester Place on Dec. 23, 2023.
On Saturday, his sister, Tatev Stepanyan, spoke with Global News during a visit to Toronto, where she has travelled from Armenia in search of answers.
“Till now we have no answer… what happened to him, where is he… is he alive?” she said.
Stepanyan said the last time she spoke with her brother was just days before Christmas.
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“He going to celebrate Christmas with his son, with his friends… yes, it was the last time,” she said
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When her family stopped hearing from him, she said they immediately knew something was wrong.
“Oh, maybe every day… if not with me, with my mother,” she said, describing how often he would check in.
Taron, a father, had been living in Canada since 2013 after moving with his wife and son in search of a better life.
His sister described him as a devoted family man, saying it is “impossible” he would suddenly cut off contact.
“It’s just impossible… he go without any reason, without any call,” she said.
In January, Toronto police upgraded the case to a homicide investigation, saying there is a strong possibility foul play was involved. Investigators have not released details about what led to the shift.
More than two years later, there have been no arrests and no clear answers for the family.
“But we don’t want to believe… we have a little bit hope that maybe he’s somewhere,” Stepanyan said.
She added she is determined to find answers for herself and her mother.
Toronto police say a man has been arrested and charged in connection with a homicide investigation in the city’s north end.
Officers were called to a home near Threadneedle Crescent and Cresthaven Drive at around 1:32 p.m. on Wednesday, March 11, where a woman was found dead inside a residence.
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Police said the circumstances of her death were deemed suspicious.
The victim has been identified as 60-year-old Xian Wei Shao of Toronto.
Police have since arrested Sheng Long Wang, 60, of Toronto.
He has been charged with second-degree murder and is scheduled to appear in court at the Toronto Regional Bail Centre on Finch Avenue West on Saturday at 10 a.m.
This marks the city’s 4th homicide of the year.
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Police continue to investigate and anyone with information is asked to contact Toronto police.
The lawyer who represented Umar Zameer is calling for a public inquiry into how police handled his client’s case and the creation of a new investigation by Ontario Provincial Police that cleared three Toronto officers of potentially colluding.
Defence lawyer Nadar Hasan panned the OPP report, saying it had relitigated evidence the jury had already settled on — and lambasting Toronto’s police union president and Premier Doug Ford, who said the judge in the case should apologize.
Hasan’s client, Zameer, was acquitted of first-degree murder by a jury in the death of Det. Const. Jeffrey Northrup, a plainclothes officer who was fatally run over in downtown Toronto in the summer of 2021.
The judge in that case called into question the testimony of central witnesses in the Crown’s argument — Det. Lisa Forbes, Det. Const. Antonio Correa and Det. Const. Scharnil Pais — suggesting they lied and colluded.
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Over the past two years, OPP has conducted an investigation into the suggestion, which cleared the officers this week.
After the report was made public, Toronto Police Association President Clayton Campbell said the judge should apologize for suggesting the police officers lied. Premier Ford echoed the call at an unrelated event.
Hasan said the demand was a “Trumpian” attempt to undermine the independence of the justice system.
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“The premier who loudly denounced Mr. Zameer being granted bail five years ago has shoved his oar in to say that the trial judge ought to apologize,” he said.
“If this sort of Trumpian interference with the court process happened in another country, we would be laughing at the absurdity of it all.”
Legal observers and civil liberties advocates have also condemned the call for an apology as an attack on the independence of the judiciary.
“Judicial independence is a cornerstone of our constitutional democracy,” Adam Weisberg, president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, said in a statement.
“Judges cannot and should not change or apologize for their decisions based on requests from other branches of government or from witnesses in a case.”
Shakir Rahim, director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s criminal justice program, said the calls for an apology are “wholly unacceptable.”
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Hasan raised concerns about the OPP report before it was even published, noting neither he nor Zameer had been consulted.
On Thursday, he was deeply critical of it for relying on evidence the jury rejected, including details of where Northrup was when Zameer’s vehicle struck him.
“This case was decided decisively by a jury two years ago, after a jury heard all of the evidence,” he told reporters on Thursday. “We expected the worst from a police investigation into other police. These kinds of reviews invariably range from the inadequate to outright whitewashing… But what we got was far worse.”
Hasan said he wants to see a public inquiry into what went wrong with his client’s arrest and charging, as well as a broader look into the new OPP investigation.
“It’s scandalous that these sister police agencies are now trying to pass this off as either an independent investigation or one that uncovered new evidence,” he said.
Hasan demanded the release of all communications between Toronto police, its union and OPP during the drafting of the investigation.
“We need to now set the record straight about this so-called OPP report that was released this week,” he said.
“We are here today because we are witnessing a chilling moment in the history of the Canadian justice system.”
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After the release of the report, Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw praised Forbes, Correa and Pais for their resilience.
“Their reputations were questioned publicly and repeatedly, their credibility was challenged and in the court of public opinion, some had convicted them,” he said at a news conference Tuesday.
“That is an extraordinarily heavy burden for anyone to carry.”
A police investigation into the conduct of three Toronto officers in the high-profile arrest of Umar Zameer has concluded that concerns from a judge that they potentially colluded were “not supported by evidence.”
Zameer was cleared after the death of a Toronto police officer two years ago and, in her final instructions to the jury, a judge said they should consider the possibility the three officers who gave evidence had colluded.
Police had charged Zameer with the first-degree murder of Det. Const. Jeffrey Northrup, a plainclothes officer, who was fatally run over by a vehicle in an underground parking garage at Toronto City Hall in July 2021.
The trial focused on whether Zameer meant to run over Northrup, or even realized it had happened, and whether he knew the constable and his partner were police officers. Zameer testified he thought his family was being ambushed by criminals when two strangers ran over and started banging on his car.
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After the judge made her comments to the jury and Zameer was cleared, Toronto police asked officers with the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate if there was evidence that those involved had conspired.
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The report found in favour of the three officers: Lisa Forbes, Antonio Correa and Scharnil Pais.
“The OPP has found no reasonable grounds to believe that Detective Constables Forbes, Pais or Correa lied or colluded to lie,” part of the report concluded.
“Assertions to the contrary are unsupported by physical evidence, witness testimony or investigative findings. There is no evidence to support the belief that any of these officers have committed the criminal offences of obstruction of justice or perjury.”
Even before the report was released, Zameer’s lawyer expressed “serious misgivings” about it, saying neither he nor his client had been consulted.
He raised concerns provincial police had been asked to take on the investigation, rather than an independent agency.
“We await the release of this report with serious misgivings,” lawyer Nader Hasan said. “Although I would love to be proven wrong, this process does not inspire confidence that this review has been undertaken in good faith.”
During her closing instructions to the jury, Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy asked them to consider the fact that all three officers who testified appeared to have the same incorrect memory of events.
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“When three versions of an event are wrong, and wrong in the same way, you must also consider whether there has been collusion between those witnesses,” she said.
The specific detail all three shared a memory of was Northrup standing in front of the vehicle with his arms spread wide when he was hit by the car.
The judge also raised questions about why two of the officers completed their notes more than a month after the incident had taken place.
Ontario’s solicitor general has broken his silence on the arrest of seven serving Toronto police officers, weeks after the results of a massive anti-corruption probe were released.
Dubbed Project South, a York Regional Police investigation into organized crime led to the arrest of seven Toronto police officers, spreading to Peel Region, where three officers were suspended.
Claims against the Toronto cops related to alleged corruption, leaking information to an organized crime group and bribery. The charges have not been proven in court.
The bust was announced at a news conference on Feb. 5 and drew comments from both Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who said her police chief would have to “earn” trust back.
In the wake of the arrests, Global News requested an interview with Solicitor General Michael Kerzner. His office declined.
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Now, more than a month later, Kerzner has addressed the arrests — suggesting he had been available to comment earlier.
“People have said that I haven’t been available to answer any questions. In fact, it is not so,” Kerzner told reporters.
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“I’ve been before the media (at) two news conferences after the synagogue shootings in the past two weeks. Nobody asked me a question about that.”
Global News asked Kerzner’s office to share the copies of the media advisories that had informed reporters the solicitor general would be available to comment. His staff did not respond ahead of publication.
On the charges against seven serving Toronto officers, Kerzner had little to say.
“This is being investigated by a number of police services,” he told reporters.
“And, also, the inspector general is doing his investigation. So this is going forward. We’re going to wait to see what comes out. We take this matter as a provincial government very seriously.”
At the centre of the Project South investigation was an alleged plot to murder a man working at an Ontario correctional institution.
Police said the investigation began in June 2025 when investigators alleged the conspiracy to murder the correctional officer unfolded.
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Hogan said over a 36-hour period, several suspects went to the man’s home in York Region, at least three times, “we allege for the purpose of murdering him.” He said video surveillance shows masked and armed suspects went to the home, and at one point, rammed a police cruiser that was in the driveway.
He said the investigation uncovered serious allegations of criminal corruption among the charged Toronto police officers.
At an unrelated news conference on Monday, Ford said he wanted to see those who target correctional officers harshly punished.
“If you want to attack one of our correctional services officers or police, you’re going to pay a real penalty — a real, real penalty,” he said.
“These guys who go after our officers deserve to sit in a hole for, God knows, three years. Maybe the message will get out. How dare you try to go after one of our correctional service officers? I’ll have zero tolerance.”
Kerzner made similar comments.
“I want to echo the premier’s remarks on standing with our correctional officers,” he said. “These are people that work hard every single day, and as solicitor general, I’ve travelled the province extensively and I’ve visited our facilities.”
A Toronto police officer has been charged following an investigation by Peel Regional Police’s special victims unit.
Peel police say Farhan Ali, a 39-year-old officer of Markham, was arrested and charged with three counts of assault, three counts of sexual assault and four counts of mischief.
Peel police said the charges stem from a special victims unit investigation and confirmed Ali was off duty at the time of the alleged incidents.
Further details about the incidents have not been released.
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As the matter is now before the courts, Peel police say they will not be providing additional updates.
The Toronto Police Service confirmed Ali is currently suspended with pay, as required under Ontario’s Community Safety and Policing Act.
The charge comes months after Toronto police suspended all internal podcasts following backlash over an episode of the service’s Project Olive Branch podcast last March, which involved an officer by the name of Farhan Ali, as one of the speakers.
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The episode drew criticism from members of the Jewish community and prompted Chief Myron Demkiw to order a review of podcast procedures and content.
At the time, Demkiw issued a statement saying there would be an internal review of the matter.
“We acknowledge that a recent episode of our podcast, Project Olive Branch, has caused significant upset and concern in the Jewish community and beyond. That was not our intention and we apologize,” it read.
Global News reached out to Toronto police for a conclusion on the review, but did not receive a response in time for publishing.
Jewish community leaders are calling for urgent action after three synagogues in the Greater Toronto Area were struck by gunfire over the past week — incidents they say have heightened fears about safety and antisemitism.
“Three shootings in five days. It is very, very real,” said Sara Lefton of the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto.
Bullet holes and broken glass mark the aftermath at some of the synagogues, where the violence has shaken the Jewish community.
A bullet dent in the door of Shaarei Shomayim synagogue in Toronto, on Sunday, March 8, 2026. The synagogue was struck with gunfire overnight.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan
Late Friday, York Regional Police responded to reports of shots fired at the front door of the BAYT Synagogue in Thornhill.
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“This was an act of terror meant to intimidate and frighten our community,” Rabbi Daniel Korobkin said of the attack.
A few minutes after the Thornhill synagogue was hit, Toronto police were called to another synagogue on Glencairn Avenue near Bathurst Street — the location of the Shaarei Shomayim Congregation — where shots were also fired at the front door.
No one was injured in either attack, but community members say the impact has been significant.
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“When your house of prayer, the place where you seek spiritual connection (is shot at), it does create destabilization,” Korobkin said.
Pedestrians pass by a police car parked outside Shaarei Shomayim synagogue in Toronto, on Sunday, March 8, 2026. The synagogue was struck with gunfire overnight.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan
Rabbi Debra Landsberg of Temple Emanu-El Synagogue said her synagogue in North York was also targeted a week earlier.
She allowed cameras inside to show the aftermath, where bullets struck glass designed to deter damage inside.
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Jewish places of worship have faced attacks before, she said, but the incident is deeply troubling.
“There is the sense we are part of this larger story, and the story is ugly.”
Landsberg said the response from the community has been to stand together.
“People feel it strongly. The Shabbat after we had three times the number of people,” she said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has condemned the attacks: “These despicable acts of hate have no place in Ontario.”
North York synagogue targeted in shooting
Over the weekend, some groups called for tougher laws and enforcement.
Noah Shack, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), said action is needed to address what he described as the promotion of hatred and terrorism without accountability.
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“Canada is at a crossroads,” Shack said. “We’re not going anywhere, and we need every Canadian of conscience to stand up with us for our fundamental Canadian values so that we can ensure that the Canada, the Ontario, and the city of Toronto that we want to see in the future comes to fruition.”
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said investigators are pursuing those responsible.
“We are going to be relentless and leave no stone unturned,” Demkiw said.
But after three shootings in a week, some Jewish leaders say they want more than statements from officials.
“Dispense with the thoughts and prayers and get to work,” Korobkin said.
–with files form Sean Previl, Global News
Israel accused of using white phosphorus in Lebanon
Israel’s ambassador to Canada is calling on authorities to protect Jewish institutions after two synagogues in the Toronto area were struck by gunfire overnight.
“I am shocked and outraged by the shooting attacks that targeted Bayt Synagogue in Thornhill and Shaarei Shomayim Synagogue in North York, Toronto, last night,” Israeli Ambassador Iddo Moed said in a statement.
“These cowardly assaults on houses of worship are abhorrent acts of violence that strike at the heart of our shared values — safety, dignity, and freedom of religion.”
York Regional Police said officers responded at around 11:49 p.m. Friday to reports of shots fired near Clark Avenue and York Hill Boulevard in Thornhill.
When officers arrived, they located evidence of gunfire directed at a building on Clark Avenue. No injuries were reported, but police say the building sustained some damage.
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“I am both disgusted and angered to learn that the Beth Avraham Yosef of Toronto synagogue in our community has been hit with gunfire overnight,” Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca said in a statement.
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“Thankfully, no one was injured, but I know this hateful and anti-Semitic act will affect my Jewish residents deeply.”
Del Duca added that there will be more police presence around synagogues today.
YRP said a mobile command post will be set up at Promenade Mall Saturday where officers will be available to answer questions and address concerns from the public.
Toronto police are also investigating a firearm discharge reported shortly after midnight near Bathurst Street and Glencairn Avenue.
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Police say officers responded around 12:08 a.m. after reports of gunshots and later located bullet holes in the front door of a building on Glencairn Avenue.
Authorities confirmed the building is a synagogue. No injuries were reported.
Toronto city councillor Brad Bradford condemned the shooting. “I am horrified and outraged,” he wrote in a social media post, saying the synagogue had been celebrating Purim earlier in the week.
Bradford also said Toronto Police will have increased presence outside the place of worship ,”but it’s long past time for real action to build a city where that isn’t required. Where hateful acts like this are prevented, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
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Toronto police and York Police are urging anyone with information, video or dash camera footage related to the shootings to contact authorities.
