Canadian police were trying to establish Tuesday why a driver plowed a rented van along a crowded
Toronto sidewalk, killing 10 people and injuring 15, in what eyewitness accounts and surveillance video appeared to indicate was a deliberate attack.
Investigators said that suspect
Alek Minassian, 25, was not previously known to authorities, that no motive had yet emerged, but that his actions seemed deliberate.
Ralph Goodale,
Canada’s public safety minister, said in brief comments Tuesday the investigation was in its early hours. He said the investigation into MIndassian had turned up "no discernible connection” to an international national security concerns.
Goodale said there was no information warranting a change to the nation's terror threat level previously set at "medium."
In comments from Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau echoed Goodale's views. He told reporters the incident should not change how Canadians go about their daily activities.
“We cannot live in fear as we go about our everyday lives,” Trudeau said.
Minassian was expected to appear in court on Tuesday morning in connection with what is the worst mass killing in Canada in three decades. In 1989, Marc Lepine killed 14 women at an engineering school in Montreal before taking his own life.
Minassian repeatedly mounted the sidewalk with a white Ryder van and slammed into pedestrians along a stretch of Toronto's busy Yonge Street on Monday. He was arrested near the scene after a brief, but tense, confrontation with police officers.
"The incident definitely looked deliberate," Police Chief Mark Saunders told reporters at a late-night news conference. Saunders said Minassian lives in Richmond Hill, a suburb of Toronto. A social media profile under Minassian's name described him as a college student. USA TODAY could not immediately verify the profile's authenticity.
Minassian is a traditional Armenian last name, but it is not clear what the suspect's connection, if there is one at all, might be to the former Soviet republic nestled in the mountainous Caucasus region between Asia and Europe.
Police would not comment on a possible motive and also played down a possible connection to terrorism at time when Toronto this week is hosting Group of Seven foreign and security ministers for a summit. "Based on what we have there’s nothing that has it to compromise the national security at this time," Saunders said.
Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper described Minassian as a man with no known religious or political affiliations, strong views or a history or penchant for violence. The newspaper spoke to his former high school and Seneca College classmates.
The Toronto Star newspaper quoted Joseph Pham, 25, who claimed he took a computer programming class with Minassian at Seneca College just last week.
Pham described Minassian as "socially awkward" and said he "kept to himself."
The incident conjured the memory of recent mass-casualty events where someone intentionally drove a vehicle into a crowd. Such attacks have been increasingly used by terrorists, but in other instances, the driver acted out of mental illness or simple rage.