A 23-year-old man is dead and the search is underway for a suspect after a shooting inside a barber shop at a Scarborough strip mall Monday afternoon.
According to police, the shooting took place inside the shop located on Lawrence Avenue near Greencrest Circuit at around 2 p.m. following some sort of fight.
The victim was then driven away from the scene by an unidentified woman and taken to a nearby gas station at the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Bellamy Road, where he was later pronounced dead by paramedics.
Police identified the victim as Mohamed Arif Patel Monday night.
“We do think there was some prior incident between the parties that led to this confrontation,” Toronto police Det. Paul Worden said Monday night.
“One of the two parties became aware of one another being in the same vicinity, the confrontation was initiated – but I don’t know if it was known that they would both be at the plaza at the time.”
It is not immediately clear how many times the victim was shot, but paramedics said that he was unconscious at the scene.
One witness who helped load the man into the SUV told CP24 that the victim was bloody but alive when he was driven away.
“I was coming to paint a unit in this building. Suddenly when I come here I saw one guy coming out carrying maybe a friend. The guy fell down so I parked my car and I came to help him. Then an SUV came here and we tried to put him in. At that time he was alive but the body was full of blood. My hand was full of blood,” Sarkawt Hassan said.
Hold-and-secure orders were put into effect at four nearby schools following the shooting.
No information on a suspect has yet been provided by police.
Forensic teams continue to gather evidence at the scene, including surveillance video footage. A weapon has been recovered, police confirmed.
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