Toronto police identified the taxi driver who was shot and killed at work Sunday night.
Christopher Jung, 73, of Toronto, had driven a taxi in the city for 40 years, according to Kristine Hubbard, operations manager for Beck Taxi.
He was “a working man who had a family,” Hubbard said in an interview with The Star, adding that his death “hits the hearts of so many thousands of people.”
Officers received calls that a taxi driver had crashed into a fence in the Pharmacy and Eglinton Avenue area around 8:49 p.m. When they arrived, they found the driver unconscious with gunshot wounds.
He was declared dead at the hospital.
Hubbard said police may be reviewing the footage from the taxi’s interior camera, explaining that all taxis in the city have a mandatory tape recorder.
“The hope is that the images captured with that camera will lead to a quick arrest or at least answers about what exactly happened in or around that vehicle,” Hubbard said.
“I want to offer my condolences to his family. This is a commitment that the whole family makes when someone does this job. Taxi drivers are vulnerable people, ”he said, adding that the risks faced by drivers are even greater at night.
Jung was one of four men killed in fatal shootings in the city over the weekend; A total of eight separate shootings were reported.
Shortly after midnight on Saturday, 28-year-old Kamal Daley was shot and killed in a shopping center on Jane Street near Yorkwoods Gate.
Around 2:20 a.m., police responded to a call for another shooting on Eglinton Avenue West that claimed the life of 36-year-old Donald Leroy (Smokey) Marson.
Later that afternoon, a man was shot in the parking lot of a plaza near Highway 401 and Weston Road. The man, who was pronounced dead at the scene, has been identified as 24-year-old Mathio Youkhanna from Toronto.
Police also reported several non-fatal shootings on Sunday.
Around 3 a.m., a teenager was taken to a trauma center with serious injuries after get shot in his car near Martin Grove and Dixie Road. Around 5 a.m., a woman went to the hospital with serious gunshot wounds that are not life threatening. A few hours later, around 7:45 a.m., another man was rushed to the hospital after being found seriously injured with gunshot wounds near Eglinton Avenue West and Oakwood Avenue. Finally, just over an hour before the taxi driver was killed, another Cabbagetown shooting left a male victim with serious gunshot wounds. He was rushed to the hospital.
“Our Toronto police officers and homicide investigators have been working long hours to solve the recent homicides we have seen in our city,” Acting Police Chief James Ramer said in Twitter. “They are all dedicated to bringing justice to those affected by these tragedies.”
Reference-www.thestar.com