Five others, whom Toronto police Chief Bill Blair called innocent bystanders, were shot and wounded.
One of them, a 13-year-old boy, was in critical condition with gunshot wounds, Toronto police Const. Victor Kwong said.
A pregnant woman went into labour after she was knocked down in the stampede of people slipping and falling on discarded food and bags and was taken to hospital, Kwong said. Another woman was cut and bruised.
“A lot of innocent people were hurt,” Blair said outside the Eaton Centre just before 10 p.m.
The 25-year-old “was the targeted victim,” said Blair, but the others were “going about their daily lives” when they were caught in the barrage of gunfire around 6:30 p.m. in the food court packed with weekend shoppers.
“This is shocking to us,” said Blair. “This was wanton, dangerous. We will be relentless. We are calling on every Torontonian to come forward and help us with this investigation.
“The nature of those wounds indicate that person was targeted, but several people were clearly bystanders.”
“The place was crowded,” Blair added.
Photos: Victims transported, crowds gather at Eaton Centre
Homicide detectives have a description of the shooter, he said, but he wouldn't elaborate. The police gang squad was also inside the centre, which was closed until further notice.
Marcus Neves-Polonio, an employee at the Eaton Centre food court near the Dundas and Yonge Sts. entrance, described the male shooter.
“The shooter was yelling, going crazy,” he said. “It was just nuts.”
Neves-Polonio, who said he was crouching barely a metre away from the fracas, said the shooter was wearing a dark hoodie and baggy pants.
A 20-year-old man was in hospital in critical condition with gunshot wounds, Kwong said. Another man, Nicholas Kalakonis, 22, was shot, treated and released. A woman who was shot in the leg was recovering, and a third woman who was shot was in serious condition.
“What we know now will change,” Blair said, including whether any of the gunshot victims knew each other.
The 13-year-old, he said, was “totally an innocent bystander.”
And then the clearly agitated police chief paused.
“I stood on Yonge St. on Boxing Day, 2005. Today harkens back to that terrible moment. This is a very serious thing in a very public place.”
Blair was referring to the gang-related shooting death in the midst of post-Christmas crowds of 15-year-old Jane Creba.
“Whenever there is gunfire in the city we have to look at the gang aspect.”
Preliminary information, Blair said, was of one person firing one gun, but that, too, could change.
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Thousands of confused, terrified people fled for exits, were locked down inside stores, or cowered in corners or washrooms until security personnel could start herding them quickly out exits and onto the street.
Shoppers described police pouring through every door of the centre, shouting, “Go, go, run!”
A middle-aged man who said his nephew had been shot at the Eaton Centre arrived at The Hospital for Sick Children at around 7:30 p.m., accompanied by two women.
The man was escorted to the Intensive Care Unit on the hospital's second floor. More family members joined him later in the evening.
Blair said the victims were sent to several downtown hospitals. St. Michael's Hospital was in lockdown for a short time.
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Constantinos Pagiatakis, who was sitting in the food court, saw another woman in her thirties who appeared to be shot above one knee.
“Her blood was all over her jeans; there was dark blood everywhere,” said Hussien Kedhumi.
Hannah Stewart, 21, and a friend were heading toward the food court when she saw a crowd running toward her. Near the escalator, they saw an Indian woman lying on the ground.
“We went up and asked, ‘Are you okay? Have you been trampled?' ” Stewart said. “She said, ‘No, I've been shot.' ”
There was a bullet hole in her right knee. A man rushed forward and tied a camera strap around the woman's knee to compress the wound.
“She seemed really in shock,” Stewart said.
Paul Legomski, 32, of Ottawa, had just sat down at the food court with a friend when the gunshots started with “methodical regularity.”
“It was like a pop, pop, pop,” he said.
People ducked beneath the tables as the gunshots went on and on, Legomski said. Food and drinks toppled onto tables and the floor. People abandoned shopping bags and purses in their scramble.
Some tried to run up the “down” escalator, others shoved their way up the stairs.
“It was absolute madness,” Legomski said.
Erica Solmes, who works at the McDonald's at the north end of the Eaton Centre, was serving food when she heard what she thought were at least 15 shots.
There were loud screams and dozens of people started running, many jumping over tables and chairs.
Within moments, Solmes said a voice over the public address system advised people to leave.
“The voice was shaky.”
Three hours after the shooting, people were still stranded inside the centre, some in stores, as police continued to evacuate the thousands of shoppers.
The search of the massive downtown mall ended just before 9:30 p.m., Kwong said, and police were studying dozens of video camera tapes, frame by frame.
“This incident is absolutely terrible,” said Mayor Rob Ford outside the Queen St. entrance around 9:30 p.m.
He offered his condolences to the family of the dead man. “It just rips me apart.”
Subway service was suspended for two hours after the shooting but trains continued to bypass the Queen and Dundas stations.
The 501 Queen streetcar and the 505 Dundas streetcar were diverting both ways away from Yonge St.
Shopper Pagiatakis, in the food court, saw a “black man with dreadlocks” limping, holding his leg. The man collapsed.
Pagiatakis heard more gunshots. “Then I just ran.”
Michael Madden, 28, saw two stretchers being carried out of an entrance near Yonge and Dundas Sts. One carried a small person, he said. “The body didn't have a top on. I figured that was a boy,” he said.
“The city is not as safe as it used to be.”
Premier Dalton McGuinty thanked police and paramedics.
“While we are saddened and shocked by today's events, we will respond as we always have — to build communities that are safe, secure and free of gun violence,” he said in a statement.
University of Toronto student Paul McBride, 26, was standing in a lineup for juice at the food court when he heard multiple shots.
“People shoved each other . . . jumped over tables and got out,” he said. He could see at least two people on the floor with pools of blood around them. “One looked like really young.”
Mary Dupont had just walked into the Guess store, cradling her 13-month-old baby, when she heard loud gunshots and seconds later, screams.
“I've never heard gunshots before, but I knew instantly,” she said. She ran out of the Eaton Centre from an east entrance, leaving two shopping bags. “It was terrifying.”
Across the street, at Dundas Square, evening performances at an Italian festival carried on without a hitch. A crowd watched a small interpretive dance troupe perform. A woman performer sang an aria from an opera.
Hungry pedestrians bought sausages from a hot dog cart used to prop up police tape.
Police spokesman Mark Pugash said the mall's owner and manager, Cadillac Fairview, would determine when people could retrieve their cars in the centre's parking garage.
With files from Alexandra Bosanac, Josh Tapper, Niamh Scallan, Stephanie Findlay and Raveena Aulakh
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