Toronto Police Service officers are searching for Zara Jabbi, 19, who is suspected of being involved in a shooting at the U.S. consulate in Toronto on March 10 and whom the department considers armed and dangerous.
“If you see him, do not approach,” the department said. “Call 911 immediately.”
The department said that it is charging Nicholas Bennett, 19, of Toronto, with first-degree murder for allegedly shooting and killing a police constable, who was executing a search warrant connected to the March 10 attack early on Wednesday morning.
Paramedics rushed Marc Pinizzotto, 43, to a hospital after he was shot, but the police constable died from his injuries.
Myron Demkiw, chief of the Toronto Police Service, urged the suspect to turn himself in.
The investigation that led to the search warrant “concerned a number of shootings, including the shooting at the United States consulate on University Avenue,” according to Demkiw.
The shootings outside the consulate and outside a synagogue have been attributed to Kata’ib Hezbollah commander Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, who is facing terrorism charges in the United States, according to a court filing.
Former Canadian parliamentarian Kevin Vuong, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, blamed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for “directing attacks on Canadian soil that have resulted in the killing of a Toronto Police Service officer.”
“Is the Canadian government going to just turn a blind eye, or will they act with the forcefulness and seriousness this deserves?” Vuong stated. “Find every IRGC agent and proxy. Arrest them. Deport them.”
U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney were among those to extend condolences to Pinizzotto’s family.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, stated that the loss of the constable “is a heartbreaking reminder that police officers put their lives on the line every single day to keep our communities safe.”
“May his memory be a blessing,” CIJA said.
A procession escorting Pinizzotto from Sunnybrook Hospital to the Office of the Chief Coroner took place on Thursday afternoon.
