A teacher and a school bus driver wrestled a man to the ground after an alleged attack on a seven-year-old girl at an Etobicoke private school Tuesday afternoon.
As parents arrived at High Park Montessori School on Berl Avenue to pick up their children, panic and fear spread.
A young girl had been attacked by a stranger in the school's washroom. Instead of making a getaway, the alleged attacker was caught and held on the ground, thanks to an alert teacher and bus driver after the girl told them of the attack.
The young victim was rushed to the Hospital for Sick Children just before 4 p.m. Police on the scene would not reveal the extent of her injuries.
Detectives from 22 Division arrived on the scene and arrested one unidentified man. The investigation was then handed over to sex crimes officers from police headquarters.
It was a shocking event for a normally quiet neighbourhood.
"Young kids deserve a good, healthy environment to grow up and go to school and not worry about being attacked or anything like that," area resident Joe Cirillo said.
He added that incidents like this are unusual for the area, making it a safe place for children.
"Thank God, that's why we live in this neighbourhood here," Cirillo said.
"My children have grown up here and my grandchildren have grown up in this area here, so thank God they got him and it's pretty quiet in this neighbourhood."
But that neighbourhood is now trying to make sense of what seems to be a random attack in a normally safe location.
With a report from CTV's John Lancaster
