Toronto police officer shot while investigating US consulate attack

A Toronto police officer has been shot dead as police raided an apartment allegedly linked to the March attack on the US consulate, the city’s police chief, Myron Demkiw, said.

Demkiw said 43-year-old constable Marc Pinizzotto was shot while conducting an early-morning search warrant in the north-west of the city and later died at a hospital.

The warrant “concerned a number of shootings, including the shooting at the United States consulate”, Demkiw said.

One of the suspects, identified by police as 19-year-old Zara Jabbi, remains at large and is considered “armed and dangerous” Demikw said. “I would ask anyone that would see him to call 9-1-1 immediately.”

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow said she has known the mother of the deceased officer for the 20 years.

“Their grief is shared across this city,” Chow said.

Toronto police said in March that two men fired multiple rounds at the empty US diplomatic building before sunrise.

No one was hurt in the incident that Pete Hoekstra, the US ambassador to Canada, called “deeply troubling”.

Canada’s federal police have said the investigation into the consulate shooting would determine whether it amounted to a “terrorist” event.

With reporting by Associated Press and Agence France-Press