“Never forgotten, forever loved.”
The phrase is one of many scribbled on posters lined up on Yonge Street in North York, meant to commemorate the lives lost in a devastating van attack on Monday afternoon.
The makeshift memorial has been set up along the typically busy street, near Finch Avenue, steps away from where a man in a white rental van mounted a curb and slammed into unsuspecting pedestrians.
The seemingly deliberate attack claimed the lives of 10 people and and injured 14 others. Police have not yet released the names and ages of the victims, but a source has since confirmed to CP24 that one of the victims is Anne Marie D’Amico, an employee with Invesco.
The suspect, identified as 25-year-old Alek Minassian, was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder in a Toronto courtroom this morning. At a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Det. Sgt. Graham Gibson said that a 14th attempted murder charge is “expected soon.”
Minassian was arrested next to the visibly damaged van after a brief standoff with a police officer. Police previously said it was too early to suggest a motive for the attack.
As Torontonians started their days, heading to work or otherwise, many stopped at the growing memorial to lay flowers, candles and write messages of support on posters that line a cement wall in Olive Square, on the east sidewalk of Yonge Street.
“I’m here to share my feelings and my sadness and to say that – Toronto, be strong, we are here together,” one woman told CP24.
“It still hasn’t registered,” said another mourner. “I mean, this is my home, this is my neighbourhood. It’s my backyard. So we came out to pay our respects.”
Toronto Mayor John Tory and Premier Kathleen Wynne visited the busy memorial to lay flowers, write messages of support and participate in a moment of silence. Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor, Elizabeth Dowdeswell, also stopped with flowers.
Tory, Wynne and dozens of citizens who gathered to pay their respects fell silent at 1:30 p.m. – exactly one day since the sunny April Monday turned to tragedy.
Wynne said seeing the elaborate memorial for herself was “very sobering.”
“I think it’s important for people to have a place to come to express their thoughts and their pain and you can just see by reading what people have written. They so want to reach out and they so want to stand with the families, express their pain at the loss of their loved ones, and that’s why we’re here,” she said.
“One note that was pointed out to me said, ‘We don’t know you, but we love you.’ I think that is the essence of what all of these messages are.”
Tory noted that mourners should also keep first responders and “ordinary citizens” who provided “extraordinary help” to the wounded in their hearts.
“We love these people. They were our fellow Torontonians who lost their lives or were injured, they were families who suffered a terrible loss yesterday, or even some of our first responders who were traumatized by the experience they went through,” he said. “We’re here as part of that healing process which I think will take a long time and it will leave a scar on the city, but scars are part of the healing process.”
The moment of silence was led by the Imam for Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at and a newly formed community group called ‘We Love Willowdale.’
As dozens of people looked on above the wall littered with posters and flowers, the two parties asked people to join them in prayer.
“What’s so beautiful, if you see on the cards, there are so many different languages written and it just represents the diversity of our community and that no matter what language we speak, we all speak love,” We Love Willowdale organizer Lily Cheng told CP24. “Everyone who is here is trying to show their love, their support and their care for our community.”
Earlier, NDP leader Andrea Horwath stopped by the memorial to lay a bouquet of flowers and write words of condolence.
She said the community needs to rely on each other to overcome this tragedy.
“All I can say is that, we have to mourn together. We have to seek justice for those folks that were killed and injured and then we have to help each other to heal and to take our community back… Take the streets back to what they used to be – which was a place of activity and camaraderie and business and all of that,” she said. “In the meantime, we have to do what we can to support those who are affected.”
Horwath visited the memorial with Saman Tabasinejad, who is an Ontario NDP candidate for Willowdale.
Tabasinejad told reporters at the scene that she had spent much of Monday afternoon canvassing in the neighbourhood for the upcoming election but decided to find a restaurant for lunch about 15 minutes before the chaos began.
“At first I thought there was a fire and then I looked a little closer and I saw passersby holding victims while they were in so much pain,” she said. “I saw the destruction left behind… broken glass, fire hydrants, shoes thrown off feet.”
Konstantin Goulich, the organizer of the memorial, said the outpouring of support makes him “proud to live in this community.”
He said people have been coming at all hours of the day and night to leave flowers and write messages of condolences, some in different languages.
“My message is that hate will not solve this and we need to basically unite and bring some closure to people,” he said.
Anna Faraone and her colleague Angelo Tocco, who both work at a nearby Toronto Catholic District School Board district office, visited the memorial to leave a prayer for the victims on behalf of the board.
“As soon as we got into the office this morning, once we got the prayer through email from our director’s office, we realized we wanted to come and express our condolences and post a prayer. Hopefully people will read it and remember the loved ones that were lost,” Faraone said. “We’re just in total shock.”
Faraone said her daughters attend Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts, which is a short distance away from where the rampage began.
She said one of her children was afraid to walk to school alone.
“I did have to accompany her, but I told her that after school we would all come (here) and express our sympathy again and pray for the loved ones that we lost,” Faraone said.
A GoFundMe page dedicated to the victims, set up by Muslim-Canadian non-profit group DawaNet, had raised more than $52,000 as of Tuesday morning.