Toronto van attack ruled as terror threat

Toronto officials on April 24 arrested a man who they believe crashed a rental van into a crowd, killing 10 and injuring 15. The attack, which happened on April 23, has been ruled as a terrorist attack. According to an April 24 news report from Time magazine, a majority of those killed in the attack were women.

The suspect, Alek Minassian, was captured shortly after driving the van onto a sidewalk, as seen on CCTV. Officials have ruled the attack as a terrorist attack, and not an accident, due to the fact that witnesses say that the driver seemed to have no intention of slowing down. According to the Time magazine report, after arriving at the hospital, two people were pronounced dead and five more were in critical condition. Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, said the government is monitoring threats and working with local authorities to prevent future attacks and find a motive for this one.

According to the Time magazine report, a majority of those who were killed were women, including an 80-year-old grandmother. Despite this, authorities have declined to say that the attacker was in fact targeting women.

The suspect’s Facebook account allegedly has posts praising other mass killers. One post was a tribute to Elliot Rodger, who killed seven including himself and injured 14 on the campus of University of California-Santa Barbara in an explicit attempt to punish women for rejecting him.

After this attack, even students at West Essex are concerned about attacks.

“I believe a similar attack could happen near us. We do live very close to New York City, which attracts a lot of attention.” senior Patrick Sanderson said.

Other West Essex students said one possible solution could already be in place in the form of government involvement in social media surveillance.  

“I believe that the government should keep an eye on social media accounts and do background checks on anyone who is identified as a threat.” senior Omar Khalil said.