Suspect charged in shooting that targeted Jewish school in Montreal; another school shot at in Toronto

Meanwhile in Toronto yesterday morning another Jewish school was the target of men with malice aforethought and guns.  From the Montreal Gazette the National Post and CBC

Montreal police arrested a suspect Wednesday in connection with shots fired against a Jewish school in Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce last fall. Abdirazak Mahdi Ahmed, 20, of Les Cèdres, appeared before a Quebec Court judge at the Montreal courthouse where he was charged with intentionally discharging a firearm, on Nov. 12, at a location knowing that a person might be inside. He is also charged with theft and receiving stolen vehicles, and committing mischief on Nov. 9.

The Crown objected to Mahdi Ahmed’s release and he will remain detained for a hearing to be held on Thursday.

It was the second shooting at the Deacon Rd. school in four days… The Nov. 12 incident came four days after shots were fired at Yeshiva Gedola and the Talmud Torah Elementary School on St-Kevin Ave. overnight. Both are in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough. The week before, Molotov cocktails were thrown at a synagogue and Jewish community centre in the West Island.

There’s a trend here. Meanwhile in Toronto this weekend

Two gunmen opened fire on a Jewish girls school in suburban Toronto early Saturday, the latest outburst of antisemitic violence in Canada to draw condemnation from political and Jewish leaders. There were no reported injuries in the 4:52 a.m. shooting at Bais Chaya Mushka Elementary School in North York.

Israel’s consul-general in Toronto, Idit Shamir, said the gunmen shot five rounds. “Can we be surprised that violence escalates when there is no deterrence following antisemitic attacks on Jewish students?” Shamir said on X,She shared a video showing two black-clad men exit a black vehicle being driven by a third person and hover briefly outside a fence before opening fire and fleeing. The provenance of the video, which was shared widely on X, is unclear.  It looks to me like it was taken by security cameras on school premises.In a news conference Saturday afternoon, Insp. Paul Krawczyk of the guns and gangs task force said the suspects fired from a dark-coloured vehicle at the Bais Chaya Mushka, a school that serves Jewish girls in the Greater Toronto Area, just before 5 a.m. before leaving. Police were called to the area after staff called investigators at around 9 a.m. Saturday reporting “evidence of a firearm discharge” at the school, Krawczyk said. There have been no reported injuries, but Krawczyk said the front of the school has been damaged. Bais Chaya Mushka takes Jewish girls from age 4-14. 

Krawczyk said it’s too early to tell whether the shooting was a hate crime or a terrorist act. “We’re not going to ignore the obvious, you know, what occurred here and what the target of the shooting was,” he said. “But at the same time, it will be wrong to just guess at this point.”

Police are asking anyone with information to contact investigators.

This is the video, used by the National Post from the office of Idit Shamir the Consul-general. The voices in the background seem to be members of her office with security experience assessing the attack. Three persons, two male who attempt to gain access but having failed to find a way in they shoot into the playground, presumably as a warning. Plus the get-away driver of their dark estate car. 

According to Ezra Levant who attended the press conference 

I went there today for the press conference. Police refuse to call it a hate crime or a terrorist attack. In fact, when I pressed the cops on rising antisemitism, they immediately broke off the press conference. The local Trudeau MP, Ya’ara Saks, refused to even attend today.