Instagram posts about suspicious red van sparks Toronto police warning
A series of social media posts in Toronto warned that a man or a group of men in a red van were harassing and attacking women.
Police are now issuing a warning of their own after a woman who says she was followed for an hour at about 12:30 a.m. Friday morning a short drive away at Bloor and St. Clarens came forward to police.
"She went for a walk, and she was walking a dog, for about an hour, and throughout the walk the van kept making appearances wherever she went," Constable David Hopkinson told CTV News Toronto.
"She spoke to an officer, we took it seriously, and we're warning people of this, asking people to check their dashcam footage, talking to people in the area," he said.
One of the posts, on Twitter and Instagram, described a second-hand account of an incident where a group of four men pulled a woman inside a red van near Dundas and Bathurst.
Another post had a picture, claiming to show the van itself.
Hopkinson said Toronto police didn’t receive any reports of a kidnapping but pored over their occurrence reports to find a possible match when they saw the kidnapping warnings online.
When the new report of a woman being followed by an "older red van" came in, that’s when police made their public warning, Hopkinson said.
The warning is in a tradition started in Toronto itself, after a woman known as ‘Jane Doe’ was sexually assaulted in the 1980s by a man police knew was on the loose — but didn’t warn the public about, said Ryerson University’s Farrah Khan.
"There has been great advocacy by survivors of sexual assault in Toronto," she said, adding that the responsibility to make a community safer rests with everyone.
"People have a right to know what’s happening. It's not that we want to alarm people, but they need to make informed decisions," she said.
Alicia Wright, who lives near Dundas and Bathurst, said she saw the warnings on social media.
"Every so often you get something on Instagram and it blows up," she said. But she said she resisted being afraid, instead choosing to push for social programs that could make change by giving any would-be assailants a better purpose.
"There's always going to be individuals making anti-social moves. I don't want to respond by becoming personally more fearful of walking around my neighbourhood," she said.
Khan said there are examples of programs that men can take to become more aware of how to approach women, including a Zoom webinar called "Curiosity Labs: Flirting and Sexting" that looks to give men a new way to approach women and ditch the sexist narratives they may have been taught.
"It gives men an opportunity to rewrite the scripts they've been living with their whole lives. We feed men these sexual scripts and this is a great way to find out how to change," Khan said.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
B.C. seeks ban on public drug use, dialing back decriminalization
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Toxic testing standoff: Family leaves house over air quality
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Decoy bear used to catch man who illegally killed a grizzly, B.C. conservation officers say
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on navigating post-political life, co-parenting and freedom
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
Last letters of pioneering climber who died on Everest reveal dark side of mountaineering
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
An emergency slide falls off a Delta Air Lines plane, forcing pilots to return to JFK in New York
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
'I was scared': Ontario man's car repossessed after missing two repair loan payments
An Ontario man who took out a loan to pay for auto repairs said his car was repossessed after he missed two payments.
First court appearance for boy and girl charged in death of Halifax 16-year-old
A girl and a boy, both 14 years old, made their first appearance today in a Halifax courtroom, where they each face a second-degree murder charge in the stabbing death of a 16-year-old high school student.