Victim of attempted carjacking says she’s more 'sad' than angry after teen arrested

The victim of an attempted carjacking on Tuesday says she was in "shock" as three males demanded she hand over her vehicle's keys outside a Walmart Supercentre in Etobicoke.

The incident happened in broad daylight at a crowded Walmart parking lot near Islington Avenue and Bergamot Avenue.

Speaking to CP24, the victim, who asked not to be identified, says she was getting out of her car when she saw a young person walk towards her and told her "give me your keys."

The incident happened at around 5:45 p.m. The victim says she started backing away while the three suspects demanded she pass over her keys.

"They grabbed at my purse; just by nature I held onto it. I fell, and when I fell, they got my purse. I started to scream, scream, scream so loud," she said. 

That scream proved pivotal, she said. Bystanders soon came to the victims aid. The suspects failed to open the woman's car, and decided to run.

"I just want to thank everyone who did stop," she said. "If people had jjust kept driving by, I think they would, it would have ended up differently."

Two of the suspects fled on foot. One bystander was able to subdue a suspect until police arrived. Police said they recovered a fire arm replica at the scene. The victim never saw a gun.

"That scared me," she said. "Because up until that point, I thought they were just kids trying to steal my car. When I heard there was a gun that kind of shook me a little bit."

The victim said she suffered some injuries to her hand, knee and elbow.

Today, police announced that a 16-year-old Toronto boy has been charged with robbery with a firearm and disguise with intent. Police are still trying to identify the other two suspects.

On Monday night Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner was held at gunpoint as three suspects made off with his black Range Rover outside a movie theatre on Islington and the Queensway. In addition, on Saturday, two people attempted to carjack a woman in the same parking lot.

According to police there have now been 61 car jackings in the city so far this year. There were just 59 in all of last year.

Today, Mayor John Tory acknowledged that carjackings have become a real problem in the city.

"The chief and his people are on this, they are applying resources to it to try and stop this activity, and they've been successful in having quite a number of arrests in the last number of weeks," he said.

Yesterday, police announced the arrest of a 17-year-old boy charged in connection to a car jacking from last week.

With the two latest arrests being males who are 16 and 17-years-old, the victim in yesterday's incident says she isn't angry.

"It made me sad," she said. "When I looked into the guy's eyes who came to me, like he looked so young, I mean even so soft-spoken and if anything I feel sad."