The Toronto Police Service (TPS) is investigating after a man was stabbed on a TTC bus during what was another violent weekend on Toronto transit.
This latest incident happened Sunday night, just one day after and not far from where a 16-year-old boy was murdered in an "unprovoked" attack at Keele subway station.
Police told Narcity they were called to the area of Keele Street and Donald Avenue at approximately 11:42 p.m., where a male was found with stab wounds.
According to Toronto paramedics, the adult victim suffered serious injuries and had to be taken to a trauma centre with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
TPS told Narcity that — unlike Saturday night's seemingly random attack at a subway station some 4 kilometres away from the scene of this stabbing — in this case, the victim and the suspect were known to each other.
Police did not offer any description of the suspect and said their investigation continues.
"Has it even been 24 hours since the 16-year-old was killed at the Keele subway station?" one Twitter user asked in response to the Tweet from TPS Operations.
It had, in fact, been just over a day since Saturday's murder.
As others commented about this incident and the weekend as a whole as another reason to avoid taking the TTC, one person wrote, "Time for Toronto police transit unit back on patrol to have TTC safety."
Back on March 13, TPS announced it was "modifying its approach" to patrolling the TTC and said it would no longer staff these patrols with "callback shifts."
"Toronto Police will be visible in the transit system and officers will continue to patrol the TTC and respond to emergencies and calls for service," said Chief of Police Myron Demkiw in a statement. "Police officers will patrol during the periods that typically generate the most calls for service, where there is a high volume of ridership with times and locations fluctuating based on our intelligence, including the number of calls for police service and information provided by the TTC."
Saturday's murder at Keele Station and Sunday's stabbing on a TTC bus both happened late at night, and it's unclear if either route is considered "high volume" by police.
"My heart breaks for the family of Gabriel Magalhaes, the 16-year-old murdered at Keele Station last night," said Toronto City Councillor Brad Bradford in a tweet on Sunday night. "The TTC needs to be safe. For everyone."
Anyone with information on either of these incidents of TTC violence is asked to contact police at 416-808-7400, or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), or at 222tips.com.
