'It's pretty scary': Toronto police investigating third tow truck-related shooting this week

Toronto police say a tow truck driver was shot and seriously injured on Jan. 9, 2025, marking the third shooting involving the city's tow truck industry in just over 24 hours.

Toronto police say they are investigating another tow truck-related shooting in Scarborough, the third such incident in just over 24 hours.

Officers were called to the area of Lawrence Avenue East and Greencrest Circuit, east of Markham Road, just before 11:45 p.m. Thursday for reports of a shooting.

The victim, a man in his 20s, according to police, was driving a tow truck at the time and transported to hospital with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries.

Investigators tell CP24 that more than 10 bullets were fired and bullet holes could be seen in the window of the tow truck at the scene. No suspect description has been released, but police say the shooter was in a dark-coloured vehicle at the time shots were fired.

“I heard like about four shots last night, saw lots of police cruisers,” one witness, who lives in the area, told CP24. “I absolutely knew it was a shooting. Very concerning late at night, was trying to sleep, my kids were in bed.”

“This is the third one in this area, I don’t know what the tow trucks are all fighting for. It’s pretty scary,” said another witness.

Hours earlier, at 5:10 p.m., police said two people took themselves to hospital after a shooting at a tow truck yard near Markham Road and Passmore Avenue, about a 15-minute drive north from the scene at Lawrence and Greencrest.

Both victims sustained non-life-threatening injuries, police said. A dark-coloured vehicle was also observed leaving that scene, but no suspect description has been released.

Police are on the scene of a shooting at a tow truck yard in the area of Markham Road and Passmore Avenue on Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (CP24)

Those two shootings follow one on Wednesday night in the area of Markham Road and Sheppard Avenue East. At approximately 10:30 p.m., police said a tow truck driver, a man in his 20s, sustained serious injuries after shots were fired there. No suspect information has been made available.

Toronto police say they’re investigating all three incidents, but it’s unclear at this time if they are connected.

Last month, Toronto police said there were 60 tow-truck related shootings in the city in 2024, accounting for nearly 15 per cent of all shooting incidents over the past year.

Toronto Police Staff Superintendent Joe Matthews, of detective operations, said in a written statement at the time that gun violence “tied to the tow truck industry continues to be a serious issue.”

This past summer, Toronto police launched a tow truck task force to address what it described as an increase in crime within a small segment of the industry.

The Ontario government also pledged to crack down on fraudulent tow truck drivers with a new certification requirement that went into effect early last year.

With files from Codi Wilson and The Canadian Press